leszek kolakowski - the alienation of reason

The Alienation of Reason A HISTORY OF POSITIVIST THOUGHT

by Leszel? Kolakowski

Translated by Norbert Gute1'1nan

DOUTILEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

GARDEN CITY! NEW YORK

1968

This book was published in Poland by Panstwowe Wydawnicrwo Naukowe in 1966 as Filozofia Poz'ytywistyczna (od Hume 'a. do Kola Tifliedenskiego). Copyright Panstwowe vVydavm.ictwo Naukowe, 1966.

Library of Congress CAtalog Card Number 68-121 57

Copyright © 1968 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

/y

Preface

This book is an account of the mam stages of positivist tbought. whicb bave to be briefly characterized if we are to grasp the meaning of this pbilosophy, tbat is, the inferences to be drawn from it as well as what is enduring in it. The term "positivism" does not refer simply to a specific philosophical doctrine tbat denies being either a doctrine or a pbilosopby. It is also used in connection witb a specific theory of law, a particnlar CUrrent in literary history, and a characteristic treatment of a number of theological cJuestions. To use the same term in all these connections is not entirely arbitrary, but justified to some extent by a common intellectual attitude to be discerned in them alL On the other hand, their similarity is not so strongly marked as to rule ont separate discussion. In this book I am concerned exclusively with positivism in the sense of a philosophical-or, if you prefer, an anti-philosophical-doctrine. I have deliberately avoided mentioning a great many names, since my intention is not to provide a detailed historical survey, listing as many contributors to this current of thought as possible, bnt rather to bring out its most important features, the ones most helpful for grasping it as a whole. Thus, the reader will find here only the best-known names in tbe history of positivism. Even to list the individuals and problems omitted would be OUt of place here.

The first and tbe last chapters deal with the same subject: they represent an attempt to characterize the phenomenon as a whole. However, the first merely expounds the most important

vi PREFACE

features of pOSltlVlSm to be found in the philosophical texts. In the last I inquire into the general meaning of this style of thinking, which as a rule is not dealt with by its adherents.

In some cases the book contains critical observations. These are clearly distinguishable from the purely informative portions. Most of the criticisms come from other sources, but since this book is addressed to the general reader I have not troubled to

indicate where I speak in my own name and where I draw on others. For the same reason I don't list the critical and historical sources r have made use of. My aim here is not to discuss new or previously ignored problems, but merely to present a wellknown phenomenon in such a way that the reader may not only be informed about it objectively, but also brought closer to understanding its function in our culture. Both the informative and the "analytical" portions of my exposition may, however, be looked upon as the results of already existing reflection, a procedure admissible iu this type of presentation.

Contents

Preface

ONE. An Over-all View of Positivism

TWO. Positivism Down to David Hume

THREE. Auguste Comte: Positivism in the Romantic Age

FOUR. Positivism Triumphant

FIVE. Positivism at the Turn of the Century

SIX. Conventionalism-Destruction of the Concept of Fact

SEVEN. Pragmatism and Positivism

EIGHT. Logical Empiricism: A Scientistic Defense of Threatened Civilization

Conclusion

Index

v

!I

47

73

134

154

174

207

221

The Alienation of Reason

\

CHAPTER ONE

An Over-all View of Positivism

The term "positive philosophy" was coined by Auguste Comte, and it has lasted down to the present iu the shorter form of "positivism." Not all, however, who according to historians or critics profess the positivist doctrine, would agree to he classified nnder this heading. As a mle snch objections are motivated by the fact that thinkers arc reluctant to admit they profess a doctrine that has had a long and complex bistory. To respect their wishes, one wonld be obliged in each case to single out those elements in positivism that are not to their taste, at the same time pointing out bow mnch of the rest of it they nonetheless snbscribe to. Also, many thinkers are conscious of the errors and oversimplifications that grow up around doctrinal labels, and for this rcason hesitate to enroll themselves under any banner.

In view of this situation, setting bonlldaries to the cnrrent of thonght positivism represents in nineteenth- and twentieth-centnry intellectnal history reqcires a decision that is partly arbitrary. The same problem arises in many other cases (for example, when one discnsses the history of existentialist or Marxist philosophy). A measure of arbitrariness, however, is unavoidable both for the historian and for the student of philosophical culture. One has to organize the material at hand according to some schema, disregarding differences in matters one looks upon as secondary, if one is to bring ont the continnity in primary contexts. Nor is this distinction between primary and secondary strains in philosophy entirely arbitrary. It is based all certain

•

2 THE ALIENATION ,OF REASON

historical data that show, it may be with the aid of purely quantitative (though approximate) indices, that certain themes, propositions, or assertions held the attention of readers, polemicists, and adherents over a given period, while others went almost unnoticed. The classifier or historian who discerns a certain "current" in the history of philosophy goes on to refer solely to historical, factual criteria in justifying his construction. Otherwise he might be suspected of ascertaining intellectual trends on the basis of arbitrarily chosen principles (though even this is permissible, provided he clearly formulates his criteria). Moreover, he refers to a sense of continuity that actually was felt by successive generations of adherents, and given expression by them. There is room for error in interpreting such evidence, bnt it certainly merits being taken into account.

In the present instance, however, we are dealing with a matter that is scarcely controversial: the existence of a "positivist current" in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy is universally acknowledged. Doubts arise only when we try to define this current, and to formulate rigorous criteria setting it off from the other currents. This situation is as normal and inescapable in the history of philosophic thought as in the history of art: the interpeuetration of ideas, the ways oue current influeuces another or reacts agaiust it, not to menti?u genuine amhignities in the texts themselves, mean that there IS always room fur more than one interpretation; perfectly clear-cut divisions are ruled out by the circumstances of the case.

So let us try to characterize the positivist mode of thinking iu the most schematic, over-all terms.

Positivism stands for a certaiu philosophical attitude concerning human knowledge; strictly speakiug, it does not prejudge questions about how men arrive at knowledge-ueither the psychological nor the historical fouudations of knowledge. But it is a collectiou of rules and evaluative criteria referring to human coguition: it teIls us what kind of contents in our statements about the world deserves the name of knowledge and supplies

AN OVER-ALL VIEW OF POSITIVISM 3

us with norms that make it possible to distinguish between that which may aud that which may uot reasonably be asked. Thus positivism is a nonnative attitude, regulating how we are to use such terms as "knowledge," "science/' "cognition/' and "information." By the same tokeu, the positivist rules distinguish between philosophical and scientific disputes that may profitably be pursued aud those that have no chauce of being settled aud hence deserve no consideration.

The most important of the rules that, according to the positivist doctrine, are to be observed in order, so to speak, to separate the wheat from the chaff in any statement about the world-i.e., to determine the questions worth considering and to discard questions that are falsely formulated or iuvolve illegitimate concepts-are as follows.

1. The rule of phenomenalism. This may be briefly formulated as follows: there is no real difference between "essence" and "phenomenon." Many traditional metaphysical doctrines assumed that various observed or observable phenomena are manifestations of a reality that eludes ordiuary cognition; this assumption justified the lise of such terms as "substance," "substantial form," "occult quality," etc. According to positivism,

,

the distiuction between essence and phenomenon should be elimiuated from science on the ground that it is misleading. We are entitled to record only that which is actually manifested in experience; opinions concerning occult entities of which exp,erieuced things are supposedly the manifestatious are untrustworthy. Disagreements over questions that go beyond the do-

L-main of .:;xrerience are purely verbal in character. It must be noted here-that positivists do not reject every distinctiou between "lnanifestation" and ~'cause." After all, it is weB known that whooping cough "manifests" itself by characteristic fits of coughing, and ouce such a type of disease has been isolated, we are entitled to recognize the cough as a "manifestation" and to inquire into the specific "hidden mechauism" of this manifestatiou. Discovery of Bacillus pertussis early iu this. century, as the

4 THE ALIENATION OF REASON

causal agent of the infection, was not, ohviously, incompatible with the assumptions of phenomenalism. For positivists do not object to inquiry into tbe immediately invisible causes of any observed pheuomenon, they object only to any accounting f~r it in terms of occult entities that are by definition inaccessible to human knowledge. Classical examples of entities the positivists condemn as illegitimate interpolations lying beyond the domain of possible experience are "matter" and "spirit." Since matter is supposed to be something different from the totality of the world's observed qualities, and since with this concept we do not account for obse.rved phenomena more effectively than without it, there is no reason to make use of it at all. Similarly, if "soul" is to denote a certain object different from the totality of the describable qualities of human psychic life, it is a superfluous cunstruet, for no one can tell us how the world without "soul" would differ from the world with "soul."

Needless to say, the phenomenalist "Don't" so form11lated can give rise to doubt, for it is hard to state it in such a form that it will settle once and for all, in every possible case, whether our question is a legitimate one, whether it represents the search for the "mechanism" behind the "manifestation," or whether it is to be thrown into the dustbin of history as "metaphysical." In some cases, the decision is easy to make. For instance, if anyone maintained that absolntely unknowable objects exist, a positivist would consider him an incorrigible metaphysician on the ground that he ~as made a statement about a reality that is by definition not subject to experimental controL Conversely, there can be no doubt ahout whether it makes sense to inqnire into the possible existence and properties of a specific cancer virus, for all that it is for the time being observable only through its "manifestations." But there are many cases in wl;ich the decision is not so obvions. We mention this, not as an objection to positivism, but to call attention to the highly abstract formulations used here to characterize the positivist program, also to the fact that incompatible interpretations of tbis same over-all rule are ro be fonnd


within positivism itself. For the moment, however, we will not go into the over-all rules in greater detail b,lt ,let them stand Out starkly as a means of identifying one fairly important current in philosophical thought. This would appear more instructive than to restrict the designation ((positivism" to certain branches of this current only.

2. The rule of nominalism. Strictly speaking, this rule may be regarded as a consequence of the preceding, but it is preferable to state it separately, considering that in philosophical controversy one philosophically valid jndgment often follows from another, yet terminological ambignities can still arise snch as may make them appear incompatible. The rule of nominalism comes down to the statement that we may not assume that any insight formulated in general terms can have any real referents other than individual concrete objects. As is well known, attempts to define knowledge from this point of view were made at the very beginning of European thought. ViThen Plato considered the question: What are we actually speaking about when, for instance, we speak about the triangle or abom justice? he formulated a gnestion that has not lost its vitality down to our own day, thongh it is often posed in different words. We say that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal to two right angles. But what does the statement actually refer to? Not to this or that triangular body, since there is no absolutely perfect triangle that meets all the reguirements of geometry; nor can it refer, for the same reason, to all individual triangular obiects. And yet it can hardly be said that geometry does not refer to anything at all. H_cnce, OUf assertion must refer to "the" trianrrle, pure and simple. Bnt what is this triangle, which is to be fonnd nowhere in nature' It has none of the physical characteristics we usually ascribe to bodies. For ooe thing, it is not localized in space. All its properties derive from the fact that it is a triang'le and nothing else; we must acknowledge that it exists in some way, although it is an existence not perceived by the senses, accessible only to reflection.


Nominalists reject this line of reasoning, We have the right to acknowledge the existence of a thing, they say, only when experience obliges us to do so, No experience obliges us to assume that our general knowledge about the properties of "the" triangle corresponds to a certain entity different from individual triangular bodies and possessing a separate existence from them, It is true that our science requires the use of concepmal instruments that describe certain 1geal state'h~b are nev~eved

./ in the empirical world. Not only the mathematical scieuces but also physics make use of such constructs, More particularly, the physics initiated by Galileo must inevitably make use of descriptions of ideal simations, in which certain observable feamres of the real world are carried to au abstract point of refinement, Study of the properties of such ideal simations helps us understand the real situations that ouly approximate them more or less closely. But these ideal simations-the vacuum in mechanics, self-contained systems, figures in geometry-are creations of our own that serve as a superior-more concise and more generalized-description of empirical reality. There is no reason to suppose that because we assume such simations for the convenience of our calculations, they must actually exist anywhere in reality. The world we know is a collection of individual observable facts. Science aims at ordering these facts, and it is only thanks to this ordering work that it becomes a true science, i,e., something that can be pnt to practical nse and that enables us to predict certain events on the basis of others. All our abstract concepts, all the schemata of the mathematical sciences, and all the idealizati.ons drawn up in the natural sciences are contained in these ordering systems. Only thanks to them

, can we give experience a coherent, concise form, easy to remember, purified of the accidental deviations and deformations that are necessarily present in every individnal fact. Though absolutely perfect circles are fonnd neither in nartlre nor in the prodncts of human technology, we can produce circular bodies rather closely approximating this ideal, thanks to the fact that


we operate with the perfect circle in our abstract calculations. A system ordering our experiences must be such as not to introduce into experience more entities than are contained in experience and, since it inevitably uses abstractious among its means, it must also be such as to enable ns to keep constantly in mind that these abstractions are no more or less than means, human creations that serve to organize experience but are not entitled to lay claim to separate existence .

According to nominalism, in other words, every abstract science is ..'!... method of ordering, a uantitative recordin of experiences, and has no 111 ependent cognitive fnnctiQn~he sense that, via i~s abstractions, it opens access to eIl1P.irically inaccessible _domainsgLreality. All the general entities, the abstract creations, with which rhe old metaphysics filled the world are fictions, for they illegitimately ascribed existence to things that have no existence save as names or words. In the language of the old controversies, "universaliry" is merely a characteristic of linguistic constrUcts and also-according to some interpretations-of mental acts associated with operations involving these constructs, In the world of actual experience, however, hence in tbe world pure and simple, there are no snch things as "universals. "

3. The phenomenalist, nominalist conception of science has another important consequence, namely, the rule that denies cognitive value to value judgments and n01'mative statements. Experience, positivism argues, contains no such qnalities of men, events, or things as "noble," "ignoble," Ugood,H "evil," "beautiful," "ngly," etc, Nor can any experience oblige us, through any logical operations whatever, to accept statements containing commandments or prohibitions, telling us to do something or not to do it. More accnrately: it is clear that in relation to an aim one sets oneself, it is possible to supply logical grounds for judgments concerning the effectiveness of the means employed; evaluations of this type have a technical character and may be qualified as true or false to the extent that they have a technical

•


sense, i.e" to the extent that they tell us what operations are or are not effective in achieving a desired end, Examples of such technical judgments would be a statement to the effect that we should admiuister penicillin in a case of pneumonia or one to the effect that children oU2'ht not be threatened with a beat;!1rr

c 0

if they won't eat, Such statements can, clearly, be justified, if their meaning is respectively that penicillin is an effective remedy against pneumonia, and that threatening children with punishment to make them eat causes characterologic.1l handicaps, And if we assume tacitly that, as a rule, it is a good thing to cme the sick and a bad thing to inflict psychic deformation upon children, the above-mentioned statements can be justified, even though they do have the form of uormative judgments, But we afe not to assume that any value assertion that we recognize as true "in itself," rather than in relation to something else, can he justified by experience, For instance, the principle that human life is an irreplaceable value cannot be so justified: we may accept it or we may reject it, but we must be conscious of the arbitrariness of our option, For, by the phenomenalist rule, we are obliged to reject the assumption of values as characteristics of the world accessible to the only kind of knowledge worthy of the name, At the same time, the rule of nominalism obliges us to reject the assumption that beyond the visible world there exists a domain of values "in themselves," with which our evalnations are correlated in some mysterious

( way, Consequently, we are entitled to ex.press value j~dgments ~ on the human world, but we are not entitled to assume that our

Lgrounds for making them are scientific; more generally, the only grounds for maklI1g them are our own arbitrary choices,

• 4, Finally, among the fundamental ideas of positivist philoso-phy we many mention belief in the essential unity of the scientific method. To an even greater extent that the previous principles, the meaning of this one admits of various interpretations, For all of that, the idea itself is invariably present in positivist discussion, In its most general form it expresses the


belief that the methods for acquiring valid knowledge, and the main stages in elaborating experience through theoretical reflection, are essentially the same in all spheres of experience, Consequently we have no reason to assume that the qualitative differences between particular sciences come to anything more than characteristics of a particular historical stage in the development of science; we may expect that further progress will gradually eliminate such differences or even, as many authors have believed, will reduce all the domains of kuowledge to a single science, It has often been supposed that this single science in the proper sense of the term will be physics, on the grounds that of all the empirical disciplines it has developed the most exact methods of description, and that it encompasses the most universal of the qualities and phenomena found in nature-those without which no others occur. This assumption-that all knowledge will be reduced to the physical sciences, that all scientific statements will be translated into physical terms-does not, to be sure, follow from the foregoing positivist rules without further assumptions, Moreover, belief in the unity of the scientific method can be specified in other ways as welL However, the above-mentioned interpretation is fairly common in the history of positivism.

Around these fonr briefly stated "rules," positivist philosophy has built up an extensive network of theory covering all the domains of human cognition, Defined in the most general terms, positivism is a collection of prohibitions concerning human knowledge, intended to confine the name of "knowledge" (or "science") to those operations that are observable in the evolution of the modern sciences of nature, More especially, throughout its history positivism has turned a polemical cutting edge to metaphysical speculation of every kind, and hence against all reflection that either cannot found its conclusions on empirical data or formulates its judgments in such a way that they can never be contradicted by empirical data, Tbus, according to the positivists, both the materialist and the spiritualist interpretations


of the world make use of terms to which nothing corresponds iu experience: it is not known how the world of our experience would be different from what it is, were we to assume that it is not, as materialists think, a manifestation of the existence and "' movement of matter, or were we to assume that it is not, as the adherents of religious denominations think, controlled by the spiritual forces of Providence. Since neither of these assumptions entails consequences enabling us to predict or to describe additional features of the world apart from what we can predict or describe without them, there is no reason to concern ourselves with them. Thus positivism constantly directs its criticisms against both religious interpretations of the world and materialist metaphysics, and tries to work out an observational position entirely free of metaphysical assumptions. This position is conscionsly confined to the mles the natural sciences observe in practice. According to' the positivists, metaphysical assumptions serve no pnrpose in these sciences, whose aim is to fonnnlate the interdependence of phenomena withont penetrating more deeply into their hidden "natures" and without trvinQ; to find out whether the world "in itself," apart from the ;o81;itive situations in which it appears to us, has features other than those accessihle to experience.

What sense these positivist prohibitions make in the history of culture, what initial assnmptions they require, and how they can be justified, as well as what kind of difficulties are associated with accepting them-all this we will try to analyze in a final chapter. Our main task, however, is to expound the main stages through which modern positivist thought has passed.

CHAPTER TWO

Positivism Down to David Hume

The task we have set ourselves requires the following historical remarks:

It is possible to begin the history of European positivist thought almost anywhere, for many strands we regard as of primary importance in contemporary positivist doctrines had antecedents in antiquity. There are Stoic fragments, also surviving writings by skeptics and atomists, with passages that hring vividly to mind the anti-metaphysical treatises of the modern era. For instance, these ancient thinkers tell us that experience enables us to ascertain whether a given ohject has this or that appearance, but~ that it is illegitimate to go on to infer that the ohject is in reality such as it appears to be. For example, we may say that honey appears to be sweet, but we cannot infer from this that honey is sweet; similarly, we may say that we experience the warmth of fire, but not that fire is warm "in itself," etc. The main rules of that interpretation of knowledge we call phenomenalism-which require that we distinguish between the true content of the "data" of experience (appearances, phenomena) and such illegitimate extrapolations from it as present the qualities we observe as qualities inherent in "the nature of things"-had already been formulated in antiquity, though in a form we must today regard as simplistic. (We should note right here that phenomenalism does not imply that the only objects of coguition are "psychic contents"-this belief may be, but is not necessarily, associated with the phenomenalist position. )


1. Medieval positivism. The philosophical literature of the later Middl? Ages also cOntains many texts that may be regarded as gIVIng expression to a positivist view of tbe validitv and peope of human cognition. We suppose that the emergen;e of such Jdea,s re~ected. a g.rov,ing interest in nature, in cosmoJogicalor physIcal InvestIgatIon, and aimed at eliminating the AristotelIan metaphysical categories from the description of nature. Although the nominalist tendency is one of the most sianificant components in positivist ideology as a whole, and althou:h nominalism had its first flowering as early as the close of the beleventh c.entury, this philosophy was not at first bound up with a positIVISt theory.of knowledge. It had important theological consequences, servmg above all as a tool in critidzing certain theoJoaical doctrines, but unlike fourteenth-century nominalism it ';~s not yet tied in with a scientific program. Re~ewal of acti;e interest In natural science led, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centunes, to attempts at interpreting it philosophically. In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon, a Franciscan at Oxford, not only demanded that controlled experiment be made a condition of any knowledge worthy of the name, but also called attention to the need for technical control over nature-i.e., he believed that the valu~ of knowledge can be measured by the effectiveness of its ~pphcatlOns. We call this point of view "pragmatist," and it IS common in the hist?ry of positivism; simplifying somewhat, we may say that FrancIs Bacon's well-known aphorism "Knowl-edge itself is po "" h f ' wer, IS In t e eyes 0 positivists truer "\vhen turned arou.nd: "Power itself is knowledge." Tm Roger Bacon, the only rehable means of acquiring knowledge abom the world were expenment and geometric deduction, and with this program he assoclated dreams of technological achievements that he hoped would come about once nature had been properly investigated.

However, Roger Bacon's thought accords with positivist ~lun:{jng only in a general way. All they really have in common IS disparagement of methods of cognition that cannot prove

POSITIVISM DOWN TO DAVID HUME 13

theit worth by practical effect, and the demand for an empmcally orientated science. It should be noted here that this philosopher's empirical bent extended even into the religious life: he attached an especially high value to mystical experience, as a means of direct communication with the divine source of being and as a "pragmatic" means of attaining the good life, though not here and now.

The accord between experimentalism and nominalism is more striking, and more explicit, in certain writers who, chiefly in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, distinguished themselves at Paris and Oxford by their opposition to the reigning Scholasticism. They remained virtually ignored until medievalists in our Own day called attention to the originality of their thought and began to reissue such works and fragments of works as have come down to us. William of Ockham, the best known of these writers, achieved philosophical fame above all by his support of a radical nominalism, that is, a position that falls into the innermost canon (as it were) of the positivist style of thinking. It was he who formulated the famous rule, which has been revived in various versions over the centuries, known as "Ockham's razor." It says, in effect, that entities are not to be multiplied unnecessarily: in other words, we are to take cognizance of only so much in the world as the irrefutable testimony of experience obliges us to take cognizance of. He voiced this view in opposition to a metaphysics that had populated the world with a host of superfluons entities-mere words or names without counterparts in reality. Only concrete objects and their properties are real, William maintained. Moreover, relations' between objects-the relation between cause and effect, for instance-do not constitute an independent domain of being, but are identi.cal with the objects concerned. Thus, he reduced the Aristotelian categories to two-substance and quality-argu-

. ing that only these two refer to some sort of realities in our world.

Ockham's thought aimed at driving out of philosophy all

'4 THE ALIENATION OF REASON

conceptual categories without counterparts in actual experience, and hence favored a conception of knowledge as the sum total of data that can be confirmed by experience. At the same time, this doctrine ruled out natural theology, the discipline that attempts to demonstrate the truth of religious revelation "by reason alone," with the aid of arguments drawn from the data of experience. ActuaJJy, Ockham regarded the domain of relig-ious truth as nndeITIonstrable, as being the object of faitb alon~; he was not hostile to religions truth, but believed it impossible and unnecessary to prove. Thereby Ockham's nominalism contributed to upholding the principle of a complete separation between secular knowledge and religious life. This principle was of fundamental importance in medieval intellectual culture, in efforts to emancipate from clerical control not on Iv the whole of knowledge, but also all spheres of secular Iife-~,anners and cnstoms, government, politics. The aspirations of late medieval and early modern princes to free themselves from rhe papacyand the eventual creation of nation-states in which there is complete separation of Church and State-thns have some doctrinal foundation in the extreme nominalism of the fourteenth century. ,

The most radical version of medieval positivism, however, was advanced by certain Paris nominalists who were severely condemned by the authorities in their day, chiefly because of the theologIcal consequences to which their theory of knowledge would lead. We have fragments of writings by Jean de Mirecourt, a Cistercian, and by the still more radical'Nicolas d'Aurrecourt, in which a clear-cut separation between the spheres of faIth and reaso~ is carried even farther than it was by Ockham. TheIrS 1S a crJtlque of the Scholastic theory of knowledge which departs radIcally hom the Peripatetic tradition. According to

Jean de M,reCourt, mfallible ("self-evident") knowledge is either reducIble to the principle of contradiction or is an acconnt of the facts supplied by inner or outer experience. Thus he formulated one version of a fundamental tenet of positivism, namely, , '

POSITIVISM DOWN TO DAVID HUME

that only analytical judgments and descriptions of immediate experiences deserve the name of knowledge. Whatever we know about the world on the basis of experience implies no necessity: we cannot, by invoking the principle of contradiction, prove that any fact is any more necessary than its negation. Among other things, Jean de Mirecourt maintained that the divine will is not limited by anything, or, to pur it in the langnage of modern philosophy, that all the characteristics of the world and its very existence are contingent and have no rationale apart from a free divine decree. Similarly, Nicolas d'Antrecourt reduced infallihle knowledO'e to two kinds; one based on the

b d' principle of identity, the other consisting of records of imme l-

ate experience. This reduction served to put in question the concepts of substance and cause, which were fundamental to Scholasticism. We merely observe individual causal connections, and prediction as to their constant or regular recurrence can b.e no more than probable; the principle of identity does not permIt the existence of one thing to be inferred from the existence of another. For the same reason no concatenation of observed facts entitles uS to infer that they are linked by some underlying substance that is not evident to perception. Thus ~he concept of substance turns out to be superfluous to our deSCription of the world, a mere terminological convention.

Considerations of this type, combined with outright crItICIsm of Aristotelian metaphysics, obviously foreshadowed what we have been calling the "rules" of positivism; their function is t? discern what is absolutely reliable in our knowledge and what IS not, to arrive at ultimate, infallible cognitive contents. All that is reliable are the so-called infallible rules of reasoning, which are in themselves quasi self-evident, and directly experienced data. Any knowledge irreducible to either of these twO kinds deserves no consideration. What we truly know is contained in analytical judgments (which do not refer to the existence of anything) and statements of fact. Translated into modern terminology, such is the main epistemological conception in fourteenth-cen-

THE ALIENATION OF REASON

tury nominalism. The powerlessness of our reason to rise from the natural world to the Creator with the help of inferences from effects to cause, or by arguments from design, becomes manifest in the light of this criticism. Natural theology practically ceases to exist, and the sphere of faith is left a matter of faith alone, distinct from rational demonstration. The foregoing helps ns to understand why Martin Luther found inspiration in nominalist doctrines. The nominalist idea that faith is beyond the scope of reason was also invoked by certain theologians within the Church who sought to restore Augustinian teachings and to eliminate the danger to which the Christian religion had been exposed by Scholastics wbo, intoxicated by the force of their own arguments, made its justification ever more dependent on their fragile syllogisms. Others invoked nominalism in arguing that empirical science should be freed from theological supervision. However, this question does not concern us here. We may refer to it later in connection with more recent attempts by certain schools of theology to exploit modern positivism.

In the same period a rudimentary form of pragmatism made its appearance alongside phenomenalism. Jean Buridan, who served a few tenns as rector of the University of Paris and is famous for his revolutionary attempts to overthrow Aristotelian physics, tended to helieve that cosmological theories shonld be interpreted in an instrumental rather tban a descriptive sense. That is, they do not tell us anything about the nature of the world, but provide practical cInes as to how we are to calculate and predict the motions of the heavenly bodies. Bnridan was active in the same period as Nicolas of Oresme, who, nearly two centnries before Copernicns, tried to prove the daily rotation of the earth. This is worth mentioning because, among other things, Andreas Osiander's preface to Copernicns's work contains a pragmatist and phenomenalist interpretation of heliocentrism: Copernicus is presented, not as describing the actnal structnre of the planetary system, but as advancing a hypothetical construction intended to facilitate astronomical compntation. The

POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME

pragmatist interpretation of knowledge was no novelty in Christian culture: many mystics were convinced that the human reason can never make a truc\ a literally true, statement about God, and that a language adequate to the created world is ntterly inadequate to describe the absolute; they regarded the assertions of theology as practical indications rather than doctrinal truths. They claimed that statements about God do not open access to Him, but merely nrge worship and reverence: they are norms rather than jndgments.

Thus it may be said that medieval thought gave birth .to and, in its own language, gave expression to the fundamental ldeas of positivism, which aim at establishing rules of meaningful knowledge and confine it to analytical statements or m.attel:-of-~act observations. But we must not overestimate the hlstoncal Importance of this development. The majority of Scholastic "positivists" (insofar as they may be called such) exerted only a very limited influence on the (fenerations immediately followmg. Most of the philosophical idea~ mentioned did not come to light until our own centnry. The nominalist tradition was ah:orbed into Renaissance philosophy, but in a different form; '~ ~he Middle Ages, nominalism was important primarily as one slgn~ficant phase in attacks upon the Aristotelians and. a~ a doctt1l1e containing explicitly or implicitly the theory of d!Vln~ decretalism, and thereby encouraging a return to St. Augnst1l1e s doctr1l1e of grace. The last-named qnestion, central to the doctnnal evolntion of Christianity in the epoch of the ReformatIOn a~d the Counter-Reformation, is only very loosely connected WIth

the positivist theory of knowledge. . . . . The Renaissance itself was not a POSItlVlst penod. It was

marked by an avid search for knowledge, rather than any search for rules whereby to restrain the operations of the hnman mind; it made lavish use of its hard-won freedom from ScholastIC forms of philosophy and from Scholastic terminology. The 111-

tellectual climate was the opposite of ascetic in the matter. of knowledge, as also in matters of art and morals. The nch

IS THE ALIENATION OF REASON

variety of literary styles in which philosophy now expressed itself went hand in hand with a loosening of the rules of proof and a retnrn to rhetorical modes of argnment. The infinite diversity of natme, its countless facets, its miracnlous plasticity, and its unlimited potentialities were pondered and investigated with the greatest eagerness. The world was seen to be populated with a host of mysteries-mysterious forces of natme whose secrets were probed by alchemists and magicians, mysterious non-human creatnres and other enigmatic phenomena described by natnralists. The mystery of godhead appeared to deepen, now that pantheist thinkers arose to point out that the divine activity and the very existence of the Creator are contrary to the rules of logic; this tended to limit the validity of logic. The revival of Platonism inspired both spiritualists who expressed contempt for matter and natnralists who spoke with tireless

• enthusiasm of matter's creativity. Although empiricism or experimentation flowered as never before, this development had little in common with positivist programs: the aim was to get at "the thing in itself," understood not as "substance" in the traditional sense, but as the primordial hidden "power" that Natnre diffuses through her various creations.

, 2. Positivist strands in the seventeenth century. In marked contrast, the development of positivist thought in the seventeenth centnry is very clear and closely bonnd up with the birth of modern mechanics. Galileo's thought cannot be interpreted in its entirety as an expression of the positivist program: historians have stressed the importance of the Platonic background as well. All the same, in one essential respect, Galileo founded a conception of science that may be called characteristically positivist, which became dominant in the seventeenth century and largely determined the division of intellectnal Europe into two camps. Galileo was the first to formulate, at least in so clear a form, the phenomenalist program for knowledge as opposed to the traditional interpretation of the world in terms of substantial forms. Previons descriptions of reality had attributed the canses

POSITIVISM DOVVN TO DAVID HUME 19

of observed phenomena to non-empirical "natures" ("heaviness," for example, as the cause of the fall of bodies). Now it beO'an to be recognized that such a way of thinking has no

b .

cognitive value; the Unatures" arc words "without meanmg, not tnte explanations of the phenomena. The task of science is not to go on multiplying these "natures" and their gnalitative "forms," but to snpply quantitative descriptions of measurable phenomena. One essential element in this approach was Galileo's conviction that, although mechanics must continnally appeal to experiment, its assertions do not refer to the results of actually condncted experiments, but to processes taking place nnder ideal conditions which cannot actnally be reproduced (e.g., the motion of a projectile that does not have to overcome the resistance of the air). Such ideal conditions can be envisaged with the aid of geometric models. Galileo achieved his results by going beyond empirical approaches. and recognizing the importance of idealization in science. There were many enthusiastic followers of the new science in the seventeenth centnry who failed to assimilate this particnlar aspect of his method and, in their struggle against the epigones of Scholasticism, laid exclnsive emphasis upon experimentation in' the belief that physics is merely the record of actually condncted experimen~s. However, they failed to achieve important results, at least ill

mechanics. The intellectnal life of Europe in Galileo's day and the

period immediately following was defined by a much deeper division or split of the learned world into factions: for and against "substantial forms," for and against the new phenomenalist-minded science. Despite disputes and differences among themselves, scientists in the seventeenth century felt that they were nonetheless united in opposition to the older, more conservative tradition-not just the part represented by Scholasticism, but also that represented by Renaissance natnralism-and that their common stand was defined by their acceptance of Galileo's physics. One of the most active propagators of the


new science was Marin Mersenne, dubbed "the secretary of learned Europe" because of the very extensive relations he maintained with all the important scholars and scientists of the period. Mersenne reconciled his orthodox Catholicism with the new physics the more readily because both were of use to him in fighting the same adversary-the Italian pantheistic naturalists, the astrologers, the alchemists, and the adepts of occult sciences generally. Mersenne's writings contain the general ontline of a phenomenalist physics: quantitative, mechanistic, anti-metaphysicaL According to him, scientific knowledge consists in the quantitative organization of observed phenomena and makes no metaphysical claims; it does not seek to inform us about "the nature of things," but to gain an exact quantitative knowledge of the phenomenal world, a knowledge sufficient for man's practical exploitation of that world. What lies beyond the domain of observed pbenomena is the object of faith, and here religious authority is decisive. Thanks to this sharp separation between metaphysical questions and scientific knowledge, Mersenne, like many another of his learned contemporaries, was able to retain his religious beliefs without coming into conflict with natural science; nor did his positivist interpretation of knowledge lead him-as it has led so many latter-day positivists-to give up his metaphysical convictions. What he renounced was any and all attempts to justify the latter rationally, either on the basis of experience or on other "rational" principles.

A similar type of seventeenth-century positivism is represented by Gassendi. In his first treatise (,624), directed against the Aristoteliaus, he demonstrated the futility of metaphysical speculation and the unreliability of rational theology. According to him, all knowledge worth acquiring will always and inevitably be imperfect, though not thereby unproductive of results. What we truly know on the basis of our natural means of cognition cannot go beyond probability, nor can such knowledge lay claim to discovering the "nature" of the world or the "essence" of things. At the same time, however, it suffices for

,; )


practical purposes, though it is always open to criticism and ~"

runs the risk of being sooner or later refuted. Gassendi's doctrine reflects a spirit of modesty ilL the making

of intellectual claims which was a general characteristic of the French libertines and one essential factor in the development of modern positivism. Weare not to ask questions that by definition cannot be answered with the aid of means accessible to manquestions about God, about the underlying nature of the universe, abom the invisible world. As for matters subject to the verdict of natural kuowledge, we are not to regard any results achieved as indisputable or irrevocable, but are to keep our minds open to the possibility of different solutions and correction in the light of future experience. These rules, which have today become commonplaces in scientific thinking, at the time added up to a kind of ascetic defiance addressed to every sort of speculative philosopher of nature and to all metaphysiciansmaterialist as well as religious-who organized the world into non-empirical structures of no use to natural science. It must be

, stressed once again that this program, like that of the medieval positivists, was not intended to do away with religious faith, but only to change its cognitive status. Or, as the learned men of the time believed, it was intended to restore religious faith to its original status. Faith cannot be transformed into knowledge, and this is an additional reason why we must not straitjacket science in religious directives; the paths of the two virtually never cross, and hence the Christian and the scientific attitudes can co-exist peacefully, provided they are clearly distinguished the one from the other. Not all who drew this distinction, however, always' interpreted it in the same sense. Some really were concerned with removing all religious questions from the field of vision of rationally thinking people and either refrained from taking any religious position themselves or actually looked upon this principle of separation as a safe way to formulate their own unbelief. Others found in the same principle a safeguard of religious faith against scientific criticism-a criticism unavoidable so long


as religious truths were treated as scientific assertions and their content made subject to rational control. The most widespread attitude in the period, perhaps, was represented by those who reduced religious faith to the basic beliefs held in common by all the denominations of Christianity: in God, in Providence, and in the immortality of the soul. All the more specific questions concerning the exact nature of God and how He governs the world were recognized as riddles beyond the power of the human mind to solve. Such an attitude, conrrnon in learned circles at that time, made it possible to remove religious questions from intellectual activity while yet upholding the main elements of the Christian faith. It allowed one to practice tolerance and to view religious dissension and doctrinal dispute as pointless and futile. This style of thinking considerably reduced the importance of denominational differences in the intellectual world and so furthered scientific collaboration, personal friendship, and the exchange of ideas among members of different faiths. Denominational differences were relegated to the secondary spheres of custom or legality; the fact of belonging to one or another church had no more importance than following one or another fashion and ceased to play any part in people's general outlook. Thus, in the seventeenth century, positivism gradually came to be linked with dogmatic indifferentism, with an over-all anti-metaphysical and anti-theological orientation in science, but not as yet with atheism or passionate concern for religious reform.

This new climate of opinion fnrthered moderation in the assessment of scientific knowledge. Science does not disclose infallible trnths about the nature of being but schematizes actual experience in a way that makes possible its technical exploitation. On this score, the libertine program seems to have come closest to positivism in the seventeenth century, for it implied renunciation of the hope that science could ever provide us with information concerning the necessity allegedly implied in the empirical regularities we observe. Let us not ask what the

POSITIVISM DO\.VN TO DAVID HUME 23

world must necessarily be, let us not deceive ourselves that the laws we discover imply any absolute necessity: they merely tell us how things in fact are, never that they could not be otherwise. Within the scientific description of the world, positivism thus lays bare the essential, irremediable contingency of all the properties of nature that are accessible to reason and experience. Admittedly, this intellectual modesty was not particularly frnitful of scientific results. Gassendi and the other pheuomenalists deserve full credit as propagators of the new science and for their criticism of the older Scholastic and natnralistic metaphysics, but their actual scientific achievements were modest, or at least far more mod,st than those of other scientists. The latter, no less inspired by the ideals of the new science and similarly contemptuous of explanations of the world in terms of sllbstantial forms, clung to metaphysical aspirations and hoped by their investigations to discover the ultimate basis of the universe.

From the point of view discussed here, neithet Descartes nor Lcibuiz (any more than Galileo) was a positivist, althongh both sbared the positivist conviction that interpretation of the world by unseen faculties or forces, inaccessible to empirical investigati~)ll, is absurd. We must not leave room for the operation of inexplicable forces in the ordinary course of nature, as Leibniz put it; otherwise we might end up with explanations according to which clocks show the hour becanse of some "horodeictic" faculty, and mills grind flour becanse of some "fractionating" capacity. Descartes and Leibniz believed that science should divest the world of mystery, should filJ the gaps in our cognition with real knowledge, not mask our ignorance with purely verbal formulas. Though he clung to the concept of substance, Descartes tried to characterize it in such a way that it lost its old mysteriousness: matter, or extended substance, is nothing but extension, and the soul, or thinking substance, is nothing but thinking. There is no "nature" hidden behind the actually observed qualities of things, reference to which accounts for


anything whatever. A thing is no more or less than that which can be observed in it, comes to no more or less than the sum total of its observable gualities. Although Descartes did not carry this position to its ultimate conseguences, and was not perfectly consistent in asserting it, it certainly is in line with the positivist program. At the same time, Descartes and Leibniz were both very far from tnrning their backs on metaphysical problems or from abandoning inguiry into the necessary attributes of being. In contrast to the phenomenalists who saw in the contingent character of experience evidence that the entirety of our knowledge is irrevocably uncertain, Descartes tried to overcome this contingency and to discover truths that can be accepted as absolutely necessary and that yet are not purely analytic in character. According to him, the very deceptiveness of empirical knowledge, the lack of any kind of necessity in its contents,and the fact that it does not enable us to arrive at any sure existential assertion (since even the existence of the material world is not self-evident on the basis of direct perception), oblige us to tnrn elsewbere in our guest for infallible criteria of knowledge. Hence Descartes' belief that mathematics (more precisely, the model of deductive knowledge to be found in Euclid's Elements) has universal application in science, and that only with its help will we be able to construct a science of nature not exposed to the uncertainties of empirical knowledge -a belief rooted in his striving for "necessary" truths, without which he felt no knowledge is worthy of the name. According to him, the fundamental laws of mo#on and collisions between bodies can be discovered independently of experience, by careful analysis of the concepts of extension, body, motion, resistance, etc.

Thus, if mere negation of non-phenomenal "essences" sufficed to earn a thinker the title "positivist," Descartes (like Leibniz) would be a full-fledged representative of the tradition. But because, at least in the light of the development of positivism over the last two centuries, this criterion can hardly be

POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME 25

considered sufficient, Descartes can be called a POSltlVlst only with serious reservations. For also essential to positivism is the conviction that knowledge is "necessary" only to the extent that it is analytic in character; in other words, the knowledge that deserves to be called "necessary" is not, properly speaking, knowledge about the world, but a collection of tautologies, propositions wbose truth is guaranteed by the mere meanings of the terms used, reguiring no experimental criteria for confirmation and not even benefiting from such as might be supplied. By the same token, "necessary" knowledge tells us nothing about what the world is really like, in particular contains no existential judgments, and does not refer to factual processes taking place in the world. On the contrary, in the eyes of Descartes, only that knowledge is valuable that does not merely tell us that something in fact takes place, but that something· must necessarily take place. Sucb knowledge can be achieved, but by non-empirical methods, and according to him even existential judgments may have an analytic character, as evidenced by the ontological proof for the existence of God. This proof amounts to the assertion that God's existence is an a priori truth, i.e., it can be established by mere analysis of the idea of God as the being endowed with all possible perfections (and hence with existence, since existence is a perfection). Also, Descartes' philosophical interests are in complete contrast to positivist programs for knowledge: metaphysical guestions concerning God, creation, and the immaterial soul occupy a leading place in his meditations and are by no means treated as objects of pure faith, but, on the contrary, as objects of crucial "rational" aTgumentation.

The above remarks apply to an even greater extent to Leibniz, who was just as hostile to Scholastic and naturalistic interpretations of tbe world, and who sought-even more stubbornly than Descartes-to devise methods of ~tognition capable of bringing to light necessary reasons for all the world's gualities and its very existence. Since all empirical knowledge is burdened with


contingency, and hence no statement that is a negation of a factual statement contains any internal contradiction (that it is raining we can verify by observation, but the assertion that it is not raining is not self-contradictory, for onr statement is "in itself" contingent), thus no accumulation of such knowledge will produce any kind of necessity. Discovery of causal connections does not abolish this contingency, for the conditions we may empirically discover to account for any contingent fact are just as contingent as the fact itself. At the same time onr thinking is governed by the principle of sufficient reason, which implies that every contingent statement has a necessary foundation; from a certain sufficiently broad point of view, contingency is a mark of the imperfection of our knowledge. Because the very existence of the world is contingent-i.e., because the assumption that the world does not exist or that it is entirely different from the actually existing world is not self-contradictory-we can do away with the contingency of existence and meet the requirements of the principle of sufficient reason only by assuming a Being whose' existence is identical with its essence-that is, God. Viewed from God's point of view, the world loses its contingency and discloses that what seems to us contingent is actually necessary, just as the analytic truths of geometry seem necessary to us.

We mention these philosophers in order to set clearer boundaries to what can be called positivist philosophy and its historical development. In the light of the foregoing, the cognitive program closest to larter-day positivism was formulated in the seventeenth centnry by Gassendi, although it wonld be going too far to call him a positivist without reservations. According to him, though metaphysical truths are undemonstrable, they eujoy real status in our total image of the world, not merely as decorative additions, but as truths in the literal sense. They are much truer than the resnlts of science, which are inevitably uncertain and have a pragmatic, rather than a cognitive, valne.

Noteworthy in the seventeenth century were attempts to


develop Cartesianism in a phenomenalist and positivist spmt, but in peculiar conjunction with a theological doctrine clearly fatalistic in tendency. We refer to the Cartesians whose doctrine is known as "occasionalism." This was based on the Cartesian theory according to which there can be no causal relation between spiritual substances and physical objects. From this premise the occasionalists inferred that the contents of onr observations are not caused by some peculiar conformation with the physical world that is commonly believed to lie before us and somehow enters our consciousness via the senses. More than that, physical objects cannot interact causally, for by their nature they are incapable of action. Consequently, any correspondence whatever between the contents of human knowledge and the observed world, as well as the entire system of relations we discern in the world, derives not from any order inherent in nature, but can only be the result of repeated interventions by Providence. They alone keep the system in operation: what we take for the natural cause is only the "occasional" cause, in the sense that it comes down to the occasion on which God prodnces what we t~ke for a natural effect. God alone is responsible for the fnnctioning of the universe. He sees to it that the connections between events remain constant and that the contents of onr impressions correspond to their objective counterparts. God Himself would be incapable of assigning these functions to secondary causes, since He could not change matter into spirit withont abolishing it as matter. Thus we are entitled to assert a permanent order in the world, but we are not entitled to assume that it is a property of the world itself, since it is actually acconnted for solely by the divine decisions being carried out at every moment in the existence of the universe. From this doctrine it follows, first, that hnman fate is entirely independent of human will, for we cannot by our own unaided wishes so much as move a finger or disturb a grain of sand; second, that onr knowledge of nature does not disclose an order immanent in it, but merely perceives external manifestations of God's steadfast-


ness; third, that all Scholastic explanations of natural phenomena by forces or faculties inherent in nature itself are superfluous; and fourth, that any kind of worship of nature or admiration of her works is always idolatry due to ignorance-since the physical world in its entirety does not possess enough power to move a single leaf on a single tree.

Occasionalism represented a radical attempt to destroy the seventeenth-century belief in a natural order of things, and at the same time to draw the ultimate consequences from Cartesian opposition to Scholasticism. It reduced human cognition to the observation of individual phenomena, maintaining that their regularities are not inherent in nature itself. Clearly, such a phenomenalism cannot be regarded as a positivist interpretation of the world in the literal sense. It implied belief in divine omnipotence, in accounting for the order of nature, and belief in the existence of a substantial human subject wholly free from physical, spatial determinations. All the same it formulated in its own way one of the constitutive ideas of positivism: all "necessary" jndgments are inferences "from the essence," all existential judgments are "contingent." In the language of the age, this expresses a conviction that all human knowledge (apart from Revelation) is divided into analytic judgments, which supply no information concerning the reality of the objects they refer to, and factual statements, which tell us nothing about "essences," "b"" ., Sll stances, necessary connectIOns,) uforces," "causes," etc.

Berkeley's thought took the same direction, and his conclusions were even more extreme. He concentrated on clearly separating those contents that are in fact present in our perceptions from those that have been illegitimately introduced into them. His analyses showed that the latter kind of contents include the existence of matter. If we try to state accurately what is the nature of any "given," it will turn out that it consists of qualities, and that we have no reason to assert these are qualities of some otherwise unobservable physical object. The over-all accord in human perception can be accounted


for by divine guidance and does not require, even as a hypothesis, the existence of a material substrate mysteriously hidden underneath the phenomena. This does not mean, of course, that to Berkeley physical objects exist "in us," in the sense that they are merely parts of individual human minds. Berkeley pursued two aims: first, to eliminate from cognition everything that is not indispensable to its interpretation (this is why being has no meaning apart from perception and "to be" is identical with "to be perceived"), and second, to do away with the atheistic conception of the world according to which natural forces of themselves account adequately for the totality of the visible world. (Since no independent, "absolute" reality is contained in the cognitive material accessible to us, the enduring character of the world and the existence of many subjects are unintelligible unless we assume a divine absolute.) Berkeley emphatically differs from the positivists in his denial of the existence of matter, for according to them every metaphysical assertion is as meaningless as its denial, and he also differs from them in that his empiricism goes so far as to deny the validity of analytic judgments. According to him, even the assertions that were looked upon as the impregnable bastion of any "necessary" knowledge-namely, the propositions of arithmetic and geometry-originate in experience, and not merely in the sense that they cannot be formulated, but also in the sense that they cannot be proved without reference to experience. In other words, they have the same character as all other empirical generalizations. However, Berkeley's attitude toward the physics of his time closely resembles that of latter-day positivist methodologists: he says that the term "attraction," which is supposed to account for a great many physical and chemical processes, is no more than an abbreviated description of the regularities it is supposed to account for. In itself, it adds nothing to our knowledge of the regularities observed in nature, a knowledge acquired by other means.

3. The positivism of the Enlightenment. The philosophers of


the French Enlightenment criticized Berkeley. Though it cannot he said that they restored to nature the order and intelligence he had taken away from it. they did restore its independent existence. They criticized him. however, on the basis of the same initial assnmptions: to prove the existence of a real physical world ontside ourselves, we have to refer to specific experiences that can be acconnted for only as the action of external ohjects npon ourselves. According to Condillac, the experience of external resistance is snfficient for this pnrpose. At the same time the philosophes maintained that man is nnahle to attain any knowledge of "snhstances" that are inaccessible to immediate experience; on this score they followed Locke, their main anthority in the theory of knowledge. Neither matter nor spirit will ever appear before our eyes and give np their secrets. This philosophy restored the reality of the world of snbstances, which Berkeley had destroyed, bnt only in order to proclaim that they are nnknowable. The worship of science was giving birth to the worship of "facts"-a notion not yet serionsly qnestioned-but· the same worship of science demanded that the qualitative diversity of nature be rednced to a hypothetical unityc Attempts in this direction inevitably went beyond the phenomenalist program. Repeatedly, there was reconrse to more or less risky hypotheses concerning matter's necessary properties. Both the occasionalist and the Berkeleyan interpretations of knowledge had grown out of the doctrine that radically opposes human existence to the physical world; hath were hased on an image of spiritual man intelligible only as alien from nature. The . Enlightenment, on the other hand, attempted a total integration of man in his natural environment. This is why phenomenalism meant something different in each case. The first kind of phenomenalism songht to drive a wedge between man-as-spirit and his ties with nature; the second, on tbe contrary, accepted the phenomenal world as a world forged to the measure of man, and saw in perception that which links mankind with nature. No donht there are limitations of hnman knowledge, but only to


the extent that man's existence and capacities for perception are limited.

Although the typical thinkers of the French Enlightenment cautioned intellectual restraint when it came to purely metaphysical questions, they did so in no spirit of agnostic melancholy, nor did they mean to encourage disbelief in reason. On the contrary, they taught tbat within the range of experience accessible to man it is possible to discover, or at least to sense, a basic order and to achieve certainry in matters of vital importance. It is possible for ns to determine nature's demands and to discover means for fulfilling them by organizing collective life rationally. Empiricism was embraced as a challenge to mankind to address itself to questions and tasks within its capacities, those that entail neither metaphysical debate nor religious soul-searching. Such debate, such sonl-searching, were felt to be unproductive of knowledge and socially and morally harmfnl.

4. David Hume. However, the Enlightenment gave birth to a doctrine. that, carrying the premises of empiricism to their nltimate consequences, disclosed a certain incompatibility between those premises and the intentions that inspired them, and so led to the destrucrion (or self-destrnction) of all the hopes the Enlightenment had pinned on experience and common sense. The author of this docttine was David Hnme, one of the most brilliant minds the modern era has produced, and at the same time the real father of positivist philosophy-chronologically the first thinker we may call positivist without any of the reservations we have to make with reference to earlier thinkers.

The actual meaning of Hume's philosophy has repeatedly given rise to discussion. We will pass over controversial questions, however, and confine ourselves to snmming np those of his leading ideas that may be regarded as characteristically positivist in his philosophy. In this we merely follow the standard, jf not stereotyped picture of Hume long since familiar in the history of philosophy.

Hnme was the opposite of a learned pedant. He was a man


of letters primarily, but he was not one to express his thought in rambling fashion or to fail to supply solid arguments for his views. Questions that interested him he formulated with extraordinary clarity, and he weighed the possible answers without unnecessary rhetorical flourishes. When his thought is occasionally ambiguous-as in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion-the ambiguity is deliberate and constructive, not the product of clumsiness or confusion. There is hard intellectual work behind every sentence he wrote, and his writings touch on everything of importance in the intellectual life of his time. He was possessed of universal curiosity, yet he also held the conviction that to determine the limits of human knowledge is a matter of practical importance, for a sense of such limits liberates us from superfluous questions, discussion of which too readily degenerates into bitter dispute and makes it impossible to bring order and clarity into every sphere of human life.

Hume divides "the perceptions of the mind" into two classes, distinguished "by their different degrees of force and vivacity," as he puts it. The first are "impressions," or immediately experienced contents, "all onr more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will." The sec~nd are "ideas," the less lively perceptions, rooted in memory or Imagination. Ideas derive entirely from impressions, even are "copies" of them, as may be seen for instance from the fact that any defect in an organ that receives impressions makes a man incapable of grasping the corresponding ideas. ("A Laplander or ~ Negro bas no notion of the relisb of wine.") Every simple idea IS a correspondent or a faded copy of a simple impression; composite ideas-figments of the imagination, for instance-are combinations of contents known to us from impressions (a golden mOllntain, a virtuous borse). More particularly, no general ideas-as, incidentally, Berkeley had already shown-exist in the mind if they designate contents devoid of any individualizing features. Ideas are individnal, only the words linked witb them

POSITIVISM DOVVN TO DAVID HU1\1E 33

make it possihle to associate one given idea with a nnmber of

similar ones. Now, any operation of the understanding deals either with

relations between ideas or with matters of fact. Among the relations between ideas, there are some that we can study without referring to anything outside themselves, more especially without referring to observation: these are the relations of resemblance, opposition, degree of the quality possessed, and quantitative proportions. Study of snch relations is the real ohject of the mathematical sciences and affords a knowledge that is wholly certain but tells us nothing about the existence of what it refers to. The assertion, "Three times five is egual to

the half of thirty" remains valid quite apart from the existence or non-existence of the ohjects counted. It is absolutely true, but it tells us nothing about the existence of anything. This is the exact character of all mathematical propositions: they are sure because they are self-evident or because they have been legitimately inferred from self-evident propositions.

The relations of identity, of contignity in time or space, and of cause and effect have a different character. Contiguity in time and space can he ascertained without going beyond the facts themselves: knowledge of this kind belongs to the domain of immediate perception. Not so in the case of propositions concerning the causal nexus between events. In this domain we must go beyond observation, and the legitimacy of this step became for Hume a problem that he recognized as especially significant. In the struggle against philosophical prejudice, also error in ordinary reasoning, he ascribed the greatest importance

to solving this problem. According to Hume, all judgments concerning matters of

fact, in contrast to mathematical propositions, tell us something about existence: they assert the presence of a certain event, hut at the same time they imply no kind of necessity. That something is taking place in this way or that way, we can perceive directly, bnt we observe no necessity in its taking place in just


this way and no other. John has a crooked nose, yct the supposition that John's nose is straight is not self-contradictory. But are there any propositions within the domain of observation, that, withont losing their empirical character, could tell us more about the world than that something appears to us in this way or that way at a given moment? In other words, is there a sphere of knowledge in which the necessity characteristic of mathematical knowledge is associated with the reality of its contents?

Now we see why the question concerning the legitimacy of propositions involving the invariability of causal relations is so important. For such propositions are generally believed to combine two cognitive features regarded as eminently valuable, which otherwise appear only separately: reality and necessity. Unlike mathematical propositions, they are supposed to tell us something about the real world and at the same time to imply a character of necessity distinguishing them from ordinaw statements of fact. The possibility of such propositions is of paramount epistemological importance, for it determines the meaning we are to ascribe to those scientific propositions that we usually call "laws," and that, according to Hume, take the form of propositions stating necessary causal relations.

Hume's analysis of this question produced the most uncompromising, unequivocal results. In propositions about causes we predict that a certain event will take place on the basis of another event. Clearly, such knowledge is not gained through mere analysis of the terms involved; the well-known maxim tbat "Whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence" cannot be regarded as valid on the basis of its intuitive selfevidence, nor on that of the very meaning of the terms used. It is thus in contrast to such a proposition, for instance, as that two straight lines have no segment in commou. The latter proposition cannot even be grounded experimentally, for no geometric projection is ever so exact as not to arouse doubts, were we on the basis of it alone to make statements about the permanent properties of plane figures and solids. However, the


very ideas involved in such propositions are a sufficient guarantee of their truth. On the other hand, from our knowledge about certain properties of things we cannot draw necessary inferences concerning their other properties, such as might be alleged to

follow from the first: a stone left without support falls to the ground, but nothing in the stone's situation tells us a priori that the stone, once we remove its support, will move downward rather than upward; from the ligbt and warmth of a fire we cannot infer that it will consume us. Thus it is clear that the connection between cause and effect can be known only by experience, never a priori. In turn, direct observation teaches us that certain events are associated, but tlus association implies nO necessary connection. A cause may be defined as "an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other." Inferences as to cause-effect relations are thus based solely on the expectation that certain specific events will be followed by other specific events, and this expectation is rooted in habit. All we may say is that a given object has always been associated with a given result, but there are no rules that would permit us properly to infer that the same result must always be associated with similar objects. The ground of conjunction between events is not revealed in experience; all that is disclosed to us is the conjunction itself. This explains psychologically why we believe that the causal nexus is necessary-it is a habit rooted in association-but for that very reason refutes the belief. The necessity is in our minds only, not in the things themselves.

Analysis of our beliefs concerning "substance" leads to similarly destructive conclusions. Here too, as Berkeley had already shown, we pass illegitimately from the conjunction of certain observed qualities to belief in the existence of an unobservable permanent "substratum" of those qualities, essentially different from them. In reality, Hume says, "substance" denotes an


aggregate of individual qualities, nor do we actually ascribe any other meaning to the term "suhstance" when we speak or think about it. More than that, this observation applies not only to physical substances, such as were the object of Berkeley's criticism, but also to spiritual substances. No "substantial self" is given us in our impressions, no particular experience discloses tbat they have a permanent vehicle or medium, and all we know about the "soul" can be readily reduced to our knowledge of individual perceptions. TIle "self" is a superfluous hypothesis, for it accounts for nothing in ohservation that we would not know without it.

The philosophical implications of this criticism are characteristic of all later schools of positivism which, just as H ume did, turn a polemically cutting edge to realist metaphysics and religious metaphysics alike. According to Hume, criticism of the concepts of cause and suhstance bids us suspend all judgment concerning the existence of anything different from perceived qualities. The same criticism destroys irrevocably every attempt to find in nature something on the basis of which to make inferences concerning a divine intelligence ordering it. Hume's writings contain a very extensive critique of religious belief; here, it will be sufficient to mention that it is directed not only against all a priori proofs for the existence of God, but also against all argaments based on causality or the existence of a rational order in nature. The absurdity of the ontological proof is merely one particular case of the absurdity that characterizes all attempts to prove the existence of anything a priori, not to mention the fact that even if this proof were valid, it would not tell us anything about God's presence in the world, His activity as lts creator, as guardian and source of love-and hence would be irrelevant to those truths upon which every religion is based. Nor do proofs of God's existence derived from the order of the visi~le world have greater force. Whatever reasons we may adduce 111 favor of His existence, we can never get away from the principle that the cause ought to be proportionate to the

POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME 37

effect. Following this principle it is impossible to infer the infiuite attributes of God from finite things; it could more reasonably be invoked to prove on the hasis of the world's imperfections the imperfection of God. More generally, correct understanding of causality rules out any kind of demonstration in this domain, for if we stay within experience we should be able to avail ourselves of at least a certain number of constantly observable cases in which an analogous relation obtains. Nor can we determine how the universe was fanned: to do this we should have to know many worlds and the conditions under which they had been created. But the universe is one, by definition: it encompasses "all," and we cannot reaSon about it by analogy. That the world as a whole is "contingent" in the sense that its existence requires the assumption of a non-contingent Being, namely, one whose essence implies existence, cannot in any way be proved by experience. What reasons, then, are left upon which to base religious conviction? Hume ostensibly resorts to the well-tested method of defense by capitulation: he says-and the theme recurs several times in his writings-that religion, though resisting all rational, aprioristic, or experimental attempts to demonstrate its truth, has its legitimate place thanks to the needs of. the human heart. We may keep our faith qua faith, though we must renounce as hopeless all attempts to transform it into knowledge.

Obviously, such an attitude is not new in the long history of The Reason vs Faith controversy. Hume, however, carries his reflectioo further. There is nothing mysterious about the phenomenon of faith or people's need for it, nor about the "reasons of the heart" appealed to by desperate defenders of anti-rational religion. The origins of all this can be traced: when we study the history of religious beliefs and discover their embryonic forms, we find that religion is accountable for by the natural conditions of human existence and is merely a kind of infinite hope born of the wretchedness of finite hopes. In the end it turns out that a rational religion is im-


possible, and an emotional or more generally irrational religion is accountable for by natural causes. Are we, despite this fact, i.e., despite the fact that we know its natural origins, entitled as rational beings to enjoy its benefits? It would seem that Hume's answer to this question is negative, at least when we carefully compare his various statements on the subject. In other words, Hume does not confine himself to suspending judgment in the matter of religious belief, but leaves man without any solace, intellectual or affective, any sanctuary where such beliefs would have a legitimate place. His positivism thus does not advocate that we refrain from all judgment pertaining to our view of the world, but admits negative judgments concerning every kind of extra-natural reality.

5· The destructive consequences of Hume's work. Just how Hume was understood and the snbseqnent use made of his analyses have depended upon whether his thinking was accepted only in part-most often, only the critical part-or in all its implications. The probabilistic conception of knowledge and abandonment of the search for "necessary" causes in science have certainly owed a great deal to Hume's criticism. Actually, however, his criticism had more in view than just the exposure of metaphysical fictions that, instead of accounting for the phenomena, invent names. Critics of Hume have long since pointed out that his genetic explanations invoke the same principle of causality that he himself declares unreliable. He does not confine himself to proving the illegitimacy of the concept of a necessary cause, or of religious ideas, but goes on to account for the origin of the concept, the origin of those ideas, by their causes. Thus he elucidates phenomena by assuming ~he invariability of effects in human psychic life, having previously included the latter in the domain of nature where inferences as to the invariability of certain relations arrived at by analogy with observed relations have no demonstrative force. Hume himself was not concerned with this inconsistency in his own thought and made no attempt to correct it. However, certain of his


reflections suggest that his cognitive program did not consist merely in stripping our knowledge about the world of ahsolute value, nor merely in adding a coefficient of uncertainty to all we claim to know. It seems he was aware of the fact that consistent application of his criticism must lead to fundamental, radical skepticism. His critique of causality implies that the constancy with wbicb a concatenation of observations OCCU1'S in no way increases the probability tbat it will occur again. When we observe a certain connection between events in only a few cases, while observing another connection in a very large number of cases, we have stronger psychological motives for recognizing the second connection as invariable and "necessary," but no stronger groundS for doing so. Consequently, what can be really asserted beyond all doubt is limited to individual accounts of immediate observations; assumptions concerning the nature of the world "given" in those observations, whether touching its reality or the nature of the observing subject, are excluded. It is easy to see that in this conception of knowledge, that which we truly Imow is utterly barren and unproductive, whereas that which helps us to live, to create a science, and enrich our store of information generally is nO longer knowledge in the proper sense of the term. In the last analysis, according to Burne, there is no snch thing as rational knowledge about the world: this is expressed in his saying that the reason we al'e convinced that fire warms and water cools is that the opposite conviction would lead to suffering. t

Thus we may conclude that Hume's criticism does not merely amount to a dramatic destruction of the cognitive ideals of the Enlightenment-a destruction achieved by his attempt to formulate them fully. By his rejection of the legitimacy of inductive reasoning-and such was the actual consequence of his radical criticism of causality-Hnme lessened the cognitive value of all knowledge other than descriptions of individually given observable qualities. Every kind of knowledge that goes beyond such description, however indispensable to life, is valuable only


because we cannot do without it, not because it tells us what the world is really like, still less what it is, and still less what it is exactly. The meaning of knowledge thus becomes purely pragmatic, knowledge turns out to be a collection of guidelines, useful and indispensable in practice, but devoid of cognitive value. We must keep this peculiar consequence in mind, for it turns up more than once in the subseqnent history of positivism.

Hume's conclusions turned ont to be glaringly incompatible with his intentions. This philosopher had set out to eliminate the "false bricks" in the edifice of knowledge, that is, to keep only snch components as can present a valid experimental pedigree. Closer examination, however, showed him that no hnman knowledge has or can have snch a pedigree, apart from individBal observations, which are cognitively and scientifically sterile in the sense that no further inferences can be drawn from them. Intended to provide science with nnshakable fonndations, Hume's analysis deprived it of any possible foundation. Having scoured the body of knowledge of metaphysical impurities, Hume was in the end left empty-handed. His quest for an absolutely reliable knowledge in the end disclosed the chimerical nature of his nndertaking.

Hnme's failure, however, cannot be regarded as the total defeat of positivism; rather, it enables ns to discern, in Hnme's own thinking, a strand that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, from the very metaphysical doctrines he was battling-a battle he was most anxious to bring to a victorious conclusion-namely, the seventeenth-century metaphysical systems. The originators of these systems maintained that they had contrived methods thanks to which we can learn something more about the world than its visible qualities and recurrent patterns of events; that it is possible to know the ground of what is, not merely what is in fact to he observed; to know what the world mnst necessarily be, not merely what it is. Hnme opposed these simplifications, but he did so in the hope that he would at last be able to show what is really compelling and necessary in our cognition. As it

POSITIVISlvl DO\¥N TO DAVID HUME 41

turned out, however, there is no such thing. The destruction of knowledge to which Hume's doctrine was led by its own premises is thus accounted for by his striving to endow "true" knowJedO"e with the very character the seventeenth-century

" metaphysicians had claimed for it, namely, an absolutely com-pelling character. He implicitly accepted the criterion of knowledge applied by the traditional originators of systems, but he applied it to his own doctrine and to science as a whole in order to show that it cannot be applied anywhere at all. In the last analysis, his was an absolutist point of view: he demanded of science that it provide unshakable certainty, beyond all pOSSIble criticism, and this was to demand of it ideals it could never

realize. Positivism inherited from Hume the question he could not

elude and regarded as fundamental: Is there anything absolutely certain in our knowledge, and if so what? None of the later positivists followed Hnme in his rejection of the legitimacy of indnction, but all of them had to cope in one way or another with the question of its legitimacy. Since logical analysis as well as the development of science itself had made clea.r that no knowledge of the world can lay claim to absolute vabdity, the further questiou arose: Can knowledge acquired by, or with the help of, experieuce (an experience that cannot be ~eplaced by anything else, and that, though not absolutely cerram, deserves consideration for other than purely pragmatic reasons )-perhaps also any scientific or commonly recognized trUth-can such knowledge be accounted for solely by practical, rather than cognitive reasons? In other words: What is indnctively a.cqui~ed knowledge? Is it a socially conditioned reBex merely, which bIds us accept a certain state of affairs as permanently present ~eca~se to accept it is biologically more advantageous than to reject It? Or is it a valid method for establishing certain truths abont the world, truths relative in the sense that they are subject to revision, but not in the sense that something true at one time could be false at another time? How we answer this question is


crucial for all our convictions concerning the meaning of science and philosophy, for all our statements about reality. Accordiug to the first iuterpretation, there is no such thing as "knowledge" in the current sense of the term: what we know is merely the articulation of collectively conditioned reflexes, and it makes no more sense to inquire into their "truth" in the traditional sense of the term than into the "truth" of the behavior of a rat that, trained by repeated experiences, secretes digestive juices on perceiving one light signal, adrenalin on perceiving another. In this case, knowledge is not, strictly speaking, a description of the world, but a certain mode of human behavior which makes use of accumulated experiences. This is the pragmatic interpretation of knowledge. The second interpretation-the one in which we assnme that knowledge has not only a pragmatic but also a cognitive meaning, that it entitles ns to think something about the world, to believe that it is rather one thing than another-this interpretation is confronted with the task of supplying ns with a valid foundation for all methods of getting information that go beyond the collecting of individual facts. Then we mnst show what, exactly, is the basis for assuming that methods exist, thanks to which not only can we ascertain the admissibility of any piece of information, but also are entitled to suppose it actually tells us something about realityindependently of how this reality is interpreted philosophically.

Positivism as such never felt constrained to accept the first interpretation, which has the merit of simplicity and readily permits the legitimizing of anything on the ground of its usefulness, even the metaphysical doctrines that positivist criticism has always been concerned to refute. Although the pragmatic interpretation has been advanced hy certain positivists in a much more explicit version than Burne's, it is not shared by all of them. As for the other interpretation, it has to face the question raised long ago by the Greek skeptics, which is always turning up again in new versions: Can induction be validated without referring to induction? In other words, is there a way to prove


that human knowledge has cognitive value without falling into a vicious circle of argument?

In raising this question we are obviously going beyond an account of Burne's philosophy, but we must do so if we are to

gain a clear understanding of his revolutionary role in the history of cnlture, especially in reference to science's continuing effort to acbieve self-knowledge. Burne carried empiricism into its radical latter-day phase, making use of criteria elaborated by anti-empirical systems, and in this way he brought about the self-destruction of the empirical doctrine. Bis philosophy certainly helongs to tbe culture of the Eulightenment, but it reflects the impotence, so to speak, of the Enlightenment, its helplessness in the face of the questions it raised-a kind of helplessness always to be discerned in any period by those who come after it, but which yet always turns out to have heen formulated by someone in the period itself.

Burne's philosophy contributed something else, which we have not yet mentioned, to the positivist style of thiuking. That is, there is a direct tie-iu between his philosophical doctrine and his political opinions. Burne was convinced that political freedom provides the most important criterion for distiuguishing between good and bad methods of government, and tbat freedom is prerequisite to development of the arts and sciences. At least as Bnme saw it, his political opinions derived from his iuvestigations into knowledge.

It must be added, however, that the extremer consequences of his philosophy, those that strike us today as reflecting hopelessness or despair, did uot at all have that character in his own eyes. Nothing could be more false than to picture Burne as the sort of man or thinker who holds his head in pain, racked at the purely destrnctive character of his own discoveries. Burne was relentlessly consistent in his pursuit of the ultimate roots of knowledge: he sought the truth at any price. At the same time, however, he was anything but a fanatic, anything but insensitive to the claims of ordinary life. Bis outstanding characteristic was


moderation; far from imposing his convictions in any overhearing manner, he resorted (though reluctantly) to compromise on several occasions, rather than be involved in violent controversy, for he valued a "middle-ground" position in social life and personal conduct. Altbough theoretically couvinced of the fragility of human knowledge, even of its bnilt-in incapacity for living np to the expectations of scientists, he did not infer from these convictions that scientific research is pointless and shonld be given up as a waste of time. On the contrary, there was nothing he valued more. He hated every kind of fanaticism, quarrels over religion, disputes over metaphysics. We who sense great drama in his vision are very different from Hume; he was not in the least aware of it.

In this respect Hume's positivism represents one version or variant expression of tendencies common to all the thinkers of the Enlightenment. D'Alembert, whose name is frequently mentioned as a precursor of latter-day positivism, was far less radical than Hume in his epistemological criticism, tempering its possible extremes with common sense or with principles that in his day passed for those of common sense. He never doubted the existence of physical bodies and was in sympathy with the aims of "natural religion," which makes no choice among the various denominations but rather bids us confine ourselves to a few basic truths concerning the existence of God and the soul. He was convinced that the increase of knowledge has more than a purely pragmatic significance, that it leads to real insight into ever more numerous and increasingly better organized properties of the world. Yet at the Same time, his fundamental ideas and initial intentions are similar to Hume's. Any knowledge worthy of attention derives from sense impressions, and the mathematical sciences serve to order the material impressions supply, with the aid of a system of symbols, and in this way progress is assured toward the ultimate goal of the unity of the sciences. "What are the majority of those axioms geometry is so proud of," he asked, "if not the expression of the same simple idea


with the aid of two simple signs or words? Does a man who says that two and two make four possess more information than a man who says two and two is twO and two?" Science orders elementary facts, and the fewer ordering principles it employs the better. His ideal is a situation in which it would be possIble to reduce all knowledg·e to a single principle explaining-or, rather, ordering-everything. "To a man capable of encompassinn- the universe from one point of view, it would become, if we bIn

may say 501 a single hOlnogeneous fact, one great. trut 1. .

Thus the Enlightenment had a positivism all ItS own, Just as the age of the great historiosophical systems in the first. half of the next century waS to have, in the work of Comte, ItS own form of positivism adapted to its own interests and aspirati~ns. The positivism of the Enlightenment was an attem?t to ~Iew mankind in its natural, this-worldly, physical and socIal environment, an attempt to minimize differences among men by a sensationalist theory of knowledge (every human being come: into the world a tabula rasa, "blank slate"), an attempt to project a life in time freed of chimerical "wrestling with God," designed to improve the concrete conditions of human existence through co-operation, to speed up the accumulation of knowledge, to do away with prejudice and barren speculation. It sought to replace the despair created by human pretensions to absol~t~ knowledge with rational investigation of the cognitive POSslhllmes,. based ?11 empiricist premises; to replace metaphysical constructlO~S With systematic study of concrete human needs and the ,:ondmons ~f their collective satisfaction; instead of hammenng 1OtO people s heads obscurantist dogmas by terror and violence, it sought to discover educational methods that would appeal to the individual's self-interest and at the same time teach him the value of sympathy, mutual understanding, and collaboration. Within this intellectual climate, the positivist theory of knowledge turns out to have been a radically destructive tool that, with the help of a few simple rules, sought to drive out of human history all that hinders agreement among men, slows the advancement of


science, makes it harder to teach people to work together, upholds tyrannical government whether secular or ecclesiastical, hinders the circulation whether of ideas or commodities.

Needless to say, this vision of the world was not uniformly optimistic. At least some outstanding thinkers of the age were aware that conflicts and difficulties would arise if serious attempts were made to carry out such optimistic projects in the real world. We shall not, however, go into these matters here, inasmuch as we have assumed, somewhat arbitrarily but indispensably, that it is possible to expound the main stages of positivist thought without writing (as no doubt one should) a general history of philosophy. It will he enough to note here that Hume clearly enunciated the basic principles of positivism; that they were one factor in the Enlightenment's struggle against superstition, metaphysics, inequality, and despotism; that the in~ern:l antinomy in Hume's theory of knowledge came to light In his own works, and that as a result the next generation of ~ositivists was confronted with unresolved problems. The questlOn whether a knowledge, at once ahsolutely reliable and yet not devoid of content, not reduced to sterility by being confined to individual facts, was possible-this question turned out to be a concentrated expression of everything the theory of knowledge is concerned with. Hume has the lasting merit of having formulated this question clearly and fully.

CHAPTER THREE

Auguste C07nte:

Positivism in the Romantic Age

I. The qua1'Tel over Corme. It must be noted that the term "positivism" is most naturally associated with the name of this philosopher, although his doctrine contains a particularly large number of elements looked upon as alien to currently accepted positivist preoccupations and even incompatible with them. Hence all the discussion over whether and to what extent it may be legitimate to call Comte a positivist, although he himself not only so called himself but actually originated the term. Here, however, we have to distinguish between his life and his thought. Some of Comte's earliest disciples held the view that his thought can be divided into two distinct stages, the first of which is the source of positivism proper, whereas the second is at least a partial negation of the first and should be regarded as an unfortunate aherration, ascribable to the fact that the great philosopher was afflicted by a recurrence of his mental illness toward the end of his life. This picture of the situation has been altered, however, by twentieth-century historians. Unlike earlier students, they find that the so-called second phase of his thought, in which he elaborated his "religion of humanity," is a natural development from the earlier, its crowning achievement rather than any sort of falling off. Thus, depending on the particular sense they give to the term "positivism," some conclude that Comte never was a positivist-since the utopian vistas of rus later works are in a way prefigured in the earlier ones-while others decide to adapt the meaning of the term to Comte's


case, seeing no reason why the philosopher should he denied the name he created and applied to himself.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that his philosophy is a vast historiosophic synthesis of a sort most latter-day positivists approach gingerly, if at alL Though it lends itself to succinct presentation (Comte himself exercised extraordinary consistency, and his disciples were prompt to draw up shorter versions), it is still not free from certain ambiguities, especially when treated in the context of a history of positivism. These will be mentioned a little later.

2. Biography. Auguste Comte was born in Montpellier on January 18, '798, the son of a civil servant. At an unusually early age, while still a schoolboy, he displayed brilliant mathematical gifts. By the time he was sixteen, he was teaching mathematics to boys of his own age. He was admitted to the Ecole Poly technique in Paris, but expelled with a group of other students for having greeted Napoleon's return too enthusiastically in the period of the Hundred Days. Later, he began medical studies at l\1ontpellier, but after some time returned to Paris, earning his living as a translator, and pursuing various studies on his own. In 18 I 7 he met Henri de Saint-Simon, who had been reflecting for many years on the lamentable state of post-revolutionary France and on how society could be radically improved. The result of these reflections was a project for the fundamental reconstruction of society along socialist lines as Saint-Simon understood them, with particular emphasis upon making full use of human productive energies. His project was to create a planned economy free of political and social anarchy and economic crisis, and thereby free of war and poverty. Won over by the sixty-year-old Saint-Simon's schemes for refomI, the young Comte joined forces with him, served as his secretary, and acted as co-editor of his publishing enterprise. Their assocation lasted for several years, but eventually differences of opinion led to a complete break between the two. Harsh references to Comte in writings by the Saint-Simonians are evidence of this break.

AUGUSTE COMTE 49

The rest of Comtc's life was devoted to developing his doctrine and making it better known. He lived from hand to mouth and for a time supported himself meagerly by tutoring. In 1826 he launched a course of lectures intended to acquaint the public, particularly men of science, with the principles of what he called "the positive philosophy." Soon, however, a severe mental derangement forced him to stop. Tbe lectures were resumed in 1829 after he recovered. In 18)0 the first volume of his Course in Positive Philosophy appeared. The sixth and last was published twelve years later. But neither the lectures (Comte also gave public lectures on astrouomy for many years) nor the books brought in any money. He gave private lessons in mathematics, then was appointed examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique; his attempts to obtain a permanent academic post were unsnccessfuJ. For some time he received funds from England, which John Stuart Mill collected for him, but to the end of his days he was tormented by money worries. His marriage in 182 S was unsuccessful and ended in separation. In 1845 he met Clotilde de Vaux, and although their friendship was short-lived (she died about a year later), this remarkable woman greatly influenced his later works. His worship of her is reflected in his views on the important part women and "universal affection" were assigned in the "positive society" of the future.

Comte pnblished many more books: Elementary Treatise on Analytic Geometry (1843), Philosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy (,844), Discourse on the Positive Spirit (1844), The Positive Polity (185'-1854), Positive Catechism (1854), Subjective Synthesis or Universal System of Ideas Concerning the Normal State of Humanity (1856). These and his published lectures never secured him any social position, but won him a growing circle of disciples, the most prominent of whom was Emile Littn" a zealous popularizer of Comte's views. Toward the close of the 1840S a Positivist Society was founded, and from then on Comte's doctrine began to gain adherents. In accord with Comte's own plan, the society became more and more


a kind of secular religion with its own ritual; something of it survives to this day in France, although it has preserved greatest vitality in Brazil. Comte spent the greater part of his life in Paris, and died there on September 5, 1857. He was cantankerous, stubborn, and hard to get on with, like so many people who are unshakab!y convinced they have a mission radically to improve the world.

3. Ideas of social reform. Comte's whole doctrine, including the theory of knowledge, becomes intelligible only when grasped as a grandiose project for nniversal reform encompassing not only the sciences but all spheres of life. Reflection on the France of his day led him to the conviction that the organization of society needed overhauling from top to bottom, and that one prerequisite was reform of the sciences and of understanding generally. Reform of the sciences, he believed, would make it possible to create an as yet non-existent science of society, without which social life could not be reconstructed on rational foundations. Uniform organization of the totality of human knowledge was indispensable to pave the way for a full-fledged science to be known as "sociology," which alone would make possible the projected transformations of collective life.

Comte's plans for social reform are linked with a bistoriosophic schema whose leading idea he took over from the SaintSimonians. This schema (like that of Joseph de Maistre's philosophy, which has other featnres as well in common with the utopians) divides human history into alternating epochs, some "organic," some "crhical." The organic epochs are those in which societies are bent on preserving the inherited order, when social differentiations are regarded as a natural division of necessary social functions. In such epochs society is treated as a supra-individual entity with a value of its own superior to that of individuals. In the critical epocbs, bent above all on destroying the existing order, society on the contrary sees itself as merely the sum total of separate individuals; as such it is devoid of indepeudent existence and its values do not differ from those

AUGUSTE COMTE 51

associated with individuals taken separately. The alternation of organic and critical ages in history is not, however, merely a succession of swings of the pendulum, but has a directional character and results in progress. The re-emergence of an organic epoch after a critical one is uot just a return to the old order, but a restoration of the collectivity's orgauic nature in keeping with higher principles of social life. Pivotal to this progress is the transformation of modes of thinking, intellectual development as such. In the next organic phase toward which present-day humanity is moving-in the "positive society" of the fntnre-basic structural features of feudal society will have to be restored, among others a division between spiritnal and secular authority. However, the uew spiritual organization will no longer be based on theological dogmas and Christian beliefs, but on science. The only possible way to overcome the anarchy and disorder the Freuch Revolution ushered in is to create a single authority, but this is not Cat least to begin with) to be tied up with any single doctrine. In this connection Comte praised the Convention aud criticized those who idealized the British parliamentary system and wanted to transplant it to French soil. He also expressed approval of Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat, believing that a dictatorship without a doctrine may eventnally, once complemented with a suitable social ideology, restore the orgauic unity of society, political life, and religion. Comte thought that his own discoveries, leading to the creation of a true science of society, could restore the lapsed uuity. Once scientific principles have been universally recognized by mankind, the revolutionary metaphysics will be supplanted by a trne social physics. It is of the utmost importance that what is constant in the conditions of human life should he properly understood; utopian thinkers, who suppose that the underlyiug conditions of life can be transformed at will, do not encourage progfess but delay it. Before projecting anything, we must carefully study the natural resistance of things-this is as important where transforming society is concerned as where the industrial proc-


essing of raw materials is concerned. Comte was firmly convinced that he had succe&sfully resisted the temptation the utopians had not resisted, to envisage a perfect society incapable of practical realization. His own projects were adapted, he believed, to the natural and necessary characteristics of social life. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment assumed that human solidarity and co-operation existed only because they were use£nl to individnals, Comte asserted the existence of a social instinct at least as strong as selfish aspirations and entirely independent of them. The harmonious co-existence of human be

. ings is possible only thanks to this instinct, not to any alleged reconciling of private interests via a "social contract." Contrary to individualistic doctrines, society is not just an instrument for regulating conflicts between individuals, but an organic whole in its own right, and we are part of it because we have an innate tendency to live together, which is independent of individual interest. This tendency is permanent and therefore must be taken into account in all plans for social reform.

More generally, no social development can be called progress if it violates the permanent structural features of collective life as such. Private property, for instance, is one of the permanent features, and hence the utopian followers of Baheuf do not contribute to progress. The organic and rational society of the furore must be based on science: the principles of its organization will be scientifically elaborated, and all its members must adopt scientific modes of thinking.

What this scientific mode of thinking should be can be determined only by studying the history of science. The point is of crucial importance in Comte's thinking. He makes no attempt to decide arbitrarily what is or what is not science, but founds his nOlms on the basis of historical inquiry into how human knowledge has evolved. In other words, the laws of the development of human knowledge are historical par excellence. From study of these laws sociologists and historians can demonstrate that earlier, already transcended phases of human evolntion were

AUGUSTE COMTE 53

not mere ('errors)" but had, so to speak, their own rationale; they were inevitable stages of intellectual development, and the ideas produced in them were true-that is, were adetluate to the totality of needs felt in eacb successive epoch. Comte's famons Law of the Three States cannot be grasped unless we keep clearly in mind that it describes sociological realities, treats the content of human knowledge as a component of social life. It is no mere enumeration of the good, bad, and indifferent possibilities of human thought, abstractly conceived.

4- Reform of the sciences. The Law of the Three States . Science, then, is a sociological fact, and it is from this point of view that its past stages must be described, and its future possibilities assessed. Science is an instrmnent serving to increase man's control over the conditions of his natural and social life. This does not, of course, mean that our practjcal abilities correspond exactly to the state of our knowledge, for occasionally we are able to achieve results without prior preparation in the relevant field of science. However, the main touchstone of effective knowledge is practical applicability. In his reflections on the utility of the sciences Comte often lapses into an astonishingly narrow dogmatism which leads him to dismiss extensive domains of already existing or emerging knowledge as fundamentally nseless or "metaphysical." In this spirit he disposed of the theory of probability, asu'ophysics, cosmogonies extending farther than the solar system, investigations into the structure of matter, the theory of evolution, and even study of the origin of societies. In his opinion, discoveries in these fieJds can never be practically exploited, and hence represent a waste of scientists' time and energy. Such apodictic pronouncements, which, fortunately, failed to arrest research in the disciplines involved, are sometimes excnsed by Comte's defenders on the grounds that they implied no absolute prohibition but merely a demand that investigations that afford no immediate practical advantage be stopped for the time being. Comte was not laying down the law once and for all, they say; yet even if their apology were


well founded, we have to notice today how extraordinarily limited was Comte's conception of the ntilitarian tasks of knowledge.

The Law of the Three States is often presented as the "key" to Comte's doctrine. According to it, the history of the human mind can be divided into three successive "states" (or stages). These can be traced through every branch of knowledge. The first, or theological stage, COVers mankind's progress from fetishism to polytheism and on to monotheism; it corresponds to the most primitive stage of social life-theocracy. Every science inevitably passes through this stage of development, which is not to be thought of as merely a collection of sllperstitions, bnt as an embryonic form of knowledge, which anticipates futnre achievements in its rudimentary endeavors of observation and reflection. At this level, the human mind is searching for the hidden natnre of things, trying to find out "why" things happen as they do, and it answers these questions by constructing a divinity in man's own image. The course of natnre appears as a series of miracles deliberately performed by higher powers governing the visible world. Modern astronomy, for instance, would never have been born had not practical concerns stimulated early astrologers to develop an art of observing the movements of the heavenly bodies and, eventnally, a method of computing aud predicting their movements. Love of trnth for its own sake could not as yet provide a sufficiently strong motive; the earliest astronomical observation owes its existence to belief in hidden connections between the motions of the stars and the fate of individual humau beings, and to the possibilit"'f of predicting future events on the basis of astronomical computations. Similarly,. fetishistic belie~s, totemic religions, and fortnne-telling pracnces called attennon to various peculiarities of the animal world, which otherwise might have gone unnoticed; in this field too, primitive superstition made possible the accumulation of a basic store of scientificaIly important data: the domestication of animals derives from this source. Relics of its theological begin-

AUGUSTE COMTE 55

mngs are still to be discerned in mathematics, the science first to emancipate itself, especially in the mystical Pythagorean approach to numbers, which incontestably contributed to the increase of real kuowledge. In short, the superstition that invariably characterizes the early stages of knowledge is not to be simply deplored as anti-knowledge, but recoguized as a natural stage in intellectual development, the earliest form in which mankind's store of observatious and data gets organized.

Each intellectual state is correlated by Comte with a specific system of social organization. The transition to monotheism, the highest achievement of the theological state, was bound up with the development of a defensive military system intended to encompass the entire Western world. The Middle Ages, intellectually dominated by monotheism, is not to he looked upon merely as an epoch of darkness and decline, according to Comte. On this score he displayed a strong seuse of historical relativism in pointed antagonism to the eighteenth century's cliches. His rehabilitation of the Middle Ages stemmed from a conviction that the culture of this epoch, too, marked a necessary stage in the intellectual development of mankind. Thanks to the democratic principles that governed ecclesiastical life, the Middle Ages abolished or undermined the rigid caste system inherited from the past and provided a new intellectual framework for the further progress of knowledge.

A new stage of development is ushered in with the second, or metaphy sical state. Now the human mind has become mature enough not to look for supernatural causes of events. It still inquires into the "nature" of things, still wants to know the "why" of phenomena, but it accounts for what happens differently, by creating secular or natural divinides, as it were, which man now holds responsible for the observed facts: "forces," "qualities/' "powers," "properties,n and other such constructs characteristic of the metaphysically oriented stage of science. Bodies form compounds by virtue of sympathy, plants grow thanks to their vegetative soul, animals are seutient thanks to their animal


soul. As Moliere put it, opium purs one to sleep because of its "dormitive virtue." The metaphysical state undergoes a development similar to that of the preceding state, culminating in a kind of secular monotheism, which compresses the multiplicity of occult powers into the single over-all concept of "nature," regarded as capable of accounting for all the facts. The metaphysical conception of the world contributed to the advance of knowledge tremendonsly in several fields, and in its terminal phase paved the way for the turning point in hnman history-the opening of a third state, the "positive era."

The positive stage of intellectual development is distingnished from the metaphysical, among other ways, in that it does not try to answer the guestions of earlier epochs in a different way, hut rules out the guestions themselves hy unmasking their fruitless, purely verbal character. The positive mind no longer asks why, ceases to speculate on the hidden nature of things. It asks how phenomena arise and what course thev take· it collects , , facts and is ready to submit to facts; it does not permit deductive thinking to be carried too far and subjects it to the continuons control of "objective" facts. It does not employ terms that have no counterpart in reality. Its sale aim is to discover invariable universal laws governing phenomena in time, and for this purpose it makes use of observation, experiment, and calcnlation; The positive spirit leads not only to certainty, insofar as certainty is accessible to man, but also to the abolition of the illusory certainty and satisfaction that nse of empirically uncontrolled terms designating metaphysical "divinities" gave rise to. As alchemy was supplanted in the metaphysical era by the positive science of chemistry, astrology and worship of the stars by positive astronomy, so vitalist speculations are being supplanted by positive biology. Fourier formulated the guantitative regularities of thermal phenomena without bothering about the "nature" of heat. Cuvier discovered the laws governing the structure of organisms without advancing a single hypothesis concerning the "natnre" of life. Newton described the phenomena of motion and attrac-

AUGUSTE COMTE 57

tion without engaging in metaphysical speculation concerning the "essence" of matter or movement.

The positive mind presupposes a deterministic interpretation of phenomena-not in the sense that it believes in the existence of metaphysical "causes," but in the sense that it seeks to determine the universal laws governing every observed phenomenon. It is convinced that these laws, or rather regnlarities in observed phenomena, encompass the totality of the world. Comte's conception of science is purely phenomenalist, though by no means suhjectivist. According to him, the human brain should be a faithful mirror of the objective order, and knowledge of this order serves as the mind's own ordering principle. Mere introspection cannot lead to cognition of the principles according to which the human mind operates; it discovers the principles of its own operation by observing things and discovering the laws that govern them. Intelligence by itself is both impotent and dangerous: impotent, becanse it lacks sufficient incentive in itself-only affective impulses and practical needs set it to work; dangerous, because unless it is subordinated to fact it tends to create speculative metaphysical systems. Humility in the face of compelling facts and practical inspiration-such are the distinctive features of the positive intellect. No wonder, then, that the positive stage was attained first in those domains of knowledge where the human mind could most readily grasp that things do not submit to the whims of the hnman imagination, where the mind itself must bow to the demands of reality if it is to avoid costly errors. Such a domain is that of the mathematical sciences-the first to enter npon the positive stage of development, at a time when tbe others were still in their infancy.

According to Comte, although all the sciences pass through similar stages of development, they do uot all do so at the same rate of speed. We also note that the transition of anyone science to a higher stage is not accidental, but determined by the nature of its investigations as well as by its connections with particular social needs.


Consequently, the sciences form a certain natural order. This is not the result of arbitrary systematization, but clearly disclosed in the light of historical analysis. The sciences are classified according to two interconnected principles, which lead to identical results: decreasing generality and increasing complexity. The rank order that results is as follows: the least complex in subject matter and the most general in their range of validity are the mathematical sciences, which deal with every sort of measurable relation between phenomena in terms of quantity-quantity beiug the most universal, simplest property of things. Astronomy comes next. Its range is more limited than that of mathematics, but it is richer for bringing within the range of science a further feature: force. P hy sics introduces further qualitative distinctions, such as heat and light. After physics comes chemistry, which deals with qualitatively differentiated substances. An even greater number of qualities, though a narrower range of matter for investigation, characterizes the biological sciences, which investigate organic structures. Last among the sciences comes sociology, the place of which will have to be discussed separately: its object, obviously, is the most complex and the least universal of all the matters for study. Neither metaphysics nor psychology figures in this list. Comte subsequently added the science of morals as a separate discipline.

The above order is at once logical, historical, and pedagogical. That it is logical is apparent from the fact that it is based on mutually consistent principles. We realize it is historical when we observe that each science reached the positive stage at a different point in time. Mathematics liberated itself before any other science, having already reached the positive stage in ancient Greece. Astronomy emerged from the metaphysical mists only thanks to the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Physics attained its positive maturity at the end of the seventeenth century thanks to the work of Huyghens, Pascal, Papin, and Newton. The next century saw chemistry achieve the status

AUGUSTE COMTE 59

of a positive science thanks to Lavoisier, and biology was not born nntil the nineteenth centnry when, turning its back on teleologically oriented speculation about entelechies and vital forces, it began to concentrate on positive investigation into the laws governing relations between organisms and their environments on the one hand, and how the structural features in living beings endure on the other. There remains sociology which, as a positive science, is still at the programmatic stage. Comte set out to realize its program himself.

The above arrangement, we observed, is also pedagogical. This means that the sciences should be taught in the order of their development, so that they may form a coherent system in the student's mind. Comte projected an ideal of knowledge at once encyclopedic and Cartesian, in which the sciences are so closely interdependent in both their logical coherence and their practical applications that it is impossible to practice anyone of them without heing acqnainted with the others. Each more complex, Jess general science presnpposes those preceding it in the rank order, and conversely, since the sciences are practiced for the purpose of prediction and social application, a positive knowledge of social phenomena is indispensable to the orientation of knowledge as a whole. More than that, science itself is a social phenomenon, and its content depends on the historical conditions under which it was formulated. The latter observation must be treated with caution, lest we fan into the extreme relativism that neglects the value of scientific achievement in other epochs and so fail to appreciate that intellectual autonomy is indispensable to the advance of knowledge. With this reservation, the statement is basically true.

This ordering of the sciences achieves a twofold purpose. It rejects the doctrine that would reduce all disciplines to "lower" ones. This doctrine-which Comte, more or less in keeping with the philosophical climate of his day, called "materialism"-fails to take into account the qualitative differences between the sciences and labors under all illusion, either that the laws gov-


erning the mare complex domains of reality can be deduced from those governing the less complex ones, or that the ones' are simply to be identified with the others (the purely physical interpretation of life, the biological interpretation of society,

. etc.). Actually, according to Comte, the more complex sciences presuppose the less complex ones, and the more complex phenomena are ohviously dependent on simpler ones (the biological conditions of social life such as food, sexuality, etc.), but this does not imply that the complex phenomena are not subject to irreducible laws of their own. Thus, the principle of scientific autonomy rnles out any "social physics" in the eighteenth-centnry sense, also any reduction of organic life to mechanical motions in space. The nnity of the sciences is not assured by any l~vel~g process, but by recognizing their interdependence, by vIewmg them as parts of one and the same human activity, as differentiated elements of one and the same social reality. Comte th~s :,omes closer to the historical relativism that interprets sClentIfic facts as social facts and makes sociology the universal SCIence, than to the mechanistic theories that seek to describe the world in its total diversity in terms of the movements of non-qualitative bodies in space.

Although the autonomy of the intellectnal processes that :,reat~ science must be recognized, it cannot be permitted to mvahdate the fundamental criterion of the value of knowledgeusefulness. If it is not to bog down in fruitless speculation and was;e man's .intellectual energies, science must continually be ~emmded of m social tasks, which in the last analysis determine ItS valu~. TIllS practical control of knowledge has a historical and SOCIal character; it is not effected in the minds of individual scientists, but is effected continuously by the human species as a whole. In the last analysis, then, what science needs is what society needs, namely, the ability to predict eVents and to influ.e~ce them practically. In this respect, the sciences differ. Our ablhty to predict events is in inverse ratio to our ability to inflnence them. We can predict a great deal in the field of as-

AUGUSTE COMTE 61

tronomy, but we cannot influence the worlds under observation in any way whatever. The opposite is true in the domain of social behavior: here our actions can have cousiderable 111-

fluence, bur our prophecies, at least down to the present, are highly problematical.

Just which scientific knowledge is worth pnrsuing is suggested by the foregoing. The laws scientists discover are relative in the sense that they are approximate. We may regard them merely us hypotheses sufficiently confirmed by observation, but this does not make them uncertain or useless. ';Y e may not, in ascertaining laws, go beyond the actual limits of observation; more generally, there is no reason to make them more exact than considerations of practical utility demand. If a given law enables us to predict and influence the phenomena it refers to, efforts to formulate it more precisely serve only to satisfy curiosity. For instance, Comte thought that it was superfluous to have made corrections in Boyle-Mariotte's law, because he did not expect them to give rise to any practical benefit. Nor, in his opinion, do we need quantitative reseaTch in the biological sciences: the phenomena of life are too complex to be measurable; we should expect practical results, rather, from comparative study of different organic structures. Nor does the theory of evolution inspire confidence, for it rules out permanent classification-and the permanence of the species seems to be a condition for the very existence of biological science. What Comte wanted, above all, was orderly, lasting classifications; he favored Cuvier, whose method, in his view, could ascertain the exact, unchanging structural laws governing organisms. He supported Gall because he thong'ht that phrenology would do away with the old psychology and its absurd speculations on psychic functions without regard for their organic localization; rather, we should assume that psychic functions are closely correlated with the structure of the brain, and that each function has its own organ. As for the enigmatic "core" of psychic life, the initial monad or "I" conscious of itself, it is nothing but a survival of


theological ideas ahout the soul. The latter must he eliminated from positive knowledge, for it refers to no scientifically useful reality.

This style of thinking dominates throughout Comte's philosophy. His ideal is finn and uncompromising: perfect classifica-' tions, with organ and function permanently correlated in a oneto-one correspondence. Those areas of the world that disclose fluid classifications, continuous qualitative transitions, or any enigmatic features whatever, annoy and irritate him. His sure sense of the historicity of knowledge is combined with a pecnliar aversion to genetic research, which, in his opinion, is of no help in nnderstanding the phenomena studied. Comte is a fanatic on the score of searching for a definitive, "once and for all" order.

5. Sociological program. Comte coined the linguistic hybrid, "sociology." This is no doubt why some textbooks refer to him as the founder of this science. So far as that goes, Comte himself claimed to be its Galileo. In the bistory of Reason's progressive emancipation, the extraordinary complexity of social facts inevitably required that tbe science dealing witb tbem should Come last. Moreover, sociology is logically dependent upon the other disciplines because social facts occur in a biologically determined reality; it is small wonder, then, tbat the eighteenth centnry's rudimentary attempts at a scientific interpretation of society relied on biology and geography to account for buman history. However, to constitute sociology a science is also to make it independent of the otber sciences, in the sense that this obliges us clearly to distinguish between areas of social life determined by permanent conditions of organic life and those governed by purely societal laws. Once the distinction bas been drawn, it will become clear tbat all the sciences are social facts, just like other social facts, and bence depend on sociology. True knowledge is always at tbe service of buman needs. Tbus, sociology alone gives meaning to the rest of human knowledge.

As science, sociology above all exposes as illusion those earlier theories according to which all social structnres are attributed to

AUGUSTE COMTE

"original" compacts or contracts concluded in the spirit of selfinterest, in calculation of profit or Joss. Underlying all theories of the social contract is a philosophy tbat ascribes reality to individuals only and regards tbe collectivity eitber as a mechanism devised for convenience or as a theoretical abstraction. Positive sociology will show, however, that tbe opposite is true: it is the "individual" that is a mental construct, and society is the primordial reality. Social life as such is as "natural" as the functions of the human organism and regnires no fictitions contract to account for it. Mankind lives in society hecause such is the nature of the species, not because people expect that hy living together they will enjoy advantages they would not enjoy separately. Mankind, a real living being with its own continuity and identity, thinks and creates, and in no purely metaphorical sense. Mankind has its childhood, its yonth, and its maturity. Like organisms, it has its own structure and structural properties, whieh never change, and which historical progress never does away with. The fnnctions indispensable to the life of society are embodied in permanent organs. For example, social differentiation in the form of castes or classes is merely an analogue to the way tissues are differentiated in any living organism. Similarly, a perfectly homogeneous society is just as inconceivable as the disappearance of qualitative distinctions among the tissues of a living body. Progress takes place within the particular organs, bnt since they are permanent conditions of mankind's existence, they are not subject to cbange: these organs inclnde the family, private property, religion, language, secular authority, and spiritual authority. The structure of the social organism is just as unchangeable as the solar system, the stars, and the biological species. The three-stage evolution is confined to specific structural elements; moreover, changes invariably occur first of all in modes of thinking, and thence spread, as it were, to the social structure. Similarly, social revolutions do not affect tbe structure of society, but only its form: tbey are not "critical" epochs in the


Saint-Simonians' sense. Revolutions merely introduce disorder, a symptom of reorganization.

Nor is there any reason to suppose that society's fundamental institutions will be abolished in the future. In particular, the distinction between spiritual and secular authority is not a medieval invention, but an essential feature of all collective life. The division of authority between Pope and Emperor is to be replaced with a division of power between scientists and industrialists. The fact that society has yet to be rationally organized is accounted for by the shortcomings of public instruction and the lack of a scientific knowledge of society. But now (thanks to Comte) the basic intellectual requirements have been met: we need only popularize positive knowledge, and the history of Reason's emancipation will be completed once and for all. Human history will have atrained its final form. True, sociology does not just include "statics," that is, the science dealing with the permanent structural features of society, but also "dynamics," that is, the science of progress. But once the positive spirit has been victorious, progress will no longer face obstacles created by prejudice, ignorance, and myth.

6. The religion of humanity. While the positive system abolishes the old religions based on theological beliefs, it does not abolish religion itself, for this is a permanent element in the social structure, the indispensable bond that holds things together (according to Cicero, the very term religio denotes this fnnction). This idea of a secular religion has been regarded by some as implied in Comte's great synthesis, by others as merely the wanderings of a sick mind. Today almost all students of Comte discern elements of "the religion of humanity" in his thinking from the very earliest writings.

In the positive religion, Humanity takes the place of the mythological gods. Humanity transcends the individual: it is composed of all living, dead, and yet nnborn individuals; within it, individuals replace one another like cells in an organism, without thereby affecting its independent existence. Individuals

AUGUSTE COMTE

are products of Humanity: their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, talents, abilities-all are functions of the single great organism's life. Humanity deserves tbe worship once given imaginary gods. As it has always done, religion will unite human beings and order their lives, 'will keep alive the consciousness of their ties to the Higher Being, and teach people their duties (never rights). In c0!1tradistinction to the old myths, the positive religion will be able to bring about perfect harmony between mankind's emorjonal and intellectual needs.

It is noteworthy to how great an extent Comte was fascinated by the sway of Catholicism, its universalism, its ability to encompass all forms of human life. The religion of humamty WIll meticulously imitate the system the Church created,. clean:lllg it of superstitious theological beliefs bur preservlllg. Its umfying power. Rituals and sacraments, the calendar, a pnesthood to teach the dogmas of the new faith, secular baptism, secular confirmation, and secular last rites-all this will be preserved. The new dogmas are ready-they are the Comtean doctrine . and the laws of science. In addition there will be a new and posJt1ve conception of the goardian angel: this is the role assig~ed womanhood in the new faith. Nor did Comte neglect to glVe new, positive names to the months and days of the week (each month will be named after a saint of the positive religion, and each day will be dedicated to one of the seven sciences: the magical number seven was reached once positive morality waS added to the original six sciences). Also, temples will be erected to

the positive religion which, being based on scientific principles, will all be identical. The priesthood will be presided over by a positive Pope, who will share power with the positive s:cular authority. The latter's function will be primarily to further llldustrial development and to harness new intellectual conguests to practical tasks. For we think in order to act more effectively: the mind works to satisfy the body's needs.

However, man is not just a thinking being with physical needs, he also has feelings. Altruistic feelings flourish in family life,


hence the family mnst be the cornerstone of the collective edifice; consequently, the positive society asserts the rights of parents over children and prohibits divorce. Woman is assigned a particularly sublime function: she is to be the guardian and the source of human affections, and it is she who will secure the triumph of the positive spirit on earth. It is well known that feelings hold sway over the mind-not in the sense that the mind has no independent rnles of operation, but in the sense that only feeling actually inclines it to act. In the perfect world the worship of womanhood will be universal, aud there will even be a Virgin Mother giving birth to children by means of artilical insemination. Comte goes so far as to calculate the exact number of families each national unit should contain in the future: he favors small states, as being the easier to administrate efficiently.

At this point, we must make a brief digression. It may seem incredible that a writer able to treat a nnmber of scientific questions so meticulously, one endowed, moreover, with so keen a sense of the historicity of human institutions, seriously imagined that the structure and forms of the Catholic Church could be taken over intact, all its beliefs rejected and replaced with others-on the model of emptying a pail of sand and refilling it with water. But this seeming absurdity is actually a logical consequence of his doctrine. Comte is faithful to assumptions that are not his exclusive property but from which he, unlike others, drew the ultimate consequences. Once you assume that man is defined by a sum total of needs which remains constant (withont, of course, neglecting emotional needs) so that only the way in which they are satisfied changes with the advance of knowledge; further, when you assume that intellectual life and religious life have, strictly speaking, no separate existence and do not express different needs but are merely functions (or "fonns") of more primitive needs; and finally, when you assume that man acts as he does (intellectual behavior inc1uded) under tbe influence of affective stimuli that are constant and predictable so that rational social organization can encom-

AUGUSTE COMTE

pass them all-once all this is assumed, there is nothing astonishing about the supposition that it should be possible to manipulate the inherited means of expression at will for the purpose of organizing any and all social phenomena. Iu a general way Comte was aware of the resistance of things and the nonvoluntary character of human reactions to the world, but he nonetheless believed that his own theory of unchanging structures covered the totality of this resistance. He recognized the historical necessity of the "lower" forms of intellectual life, but not the indepeudent power of tradition. In other words, he entertained the helief that the society of the future, once it had adopted the positive way of thinking, would no longer be subject to the weight of its own past, and that its necessities would then take on a purely natural character, connected with biological necessity to unchanging organs of social life. Tbus, at bottom, he believed in the total obliteration of history in tbe future order, in the possibility of completely rationalizing every sphere of life. His aversion to "Utopian" thinking applied only to the kinds he detected in other thinkers. His historicism was purely retrospective, for it stopped at the positive stage. He believed in the end of history.

7. The results of Comte's thought. The Saint-Simonians were among Comte's earliest critics. They found his ideas concerning progress weak and also criticized his "materialism": their own goals included a return to true religion with a true god and true priests. They opposed any program that would subordinate artistic creatiou in the society of the future to tasks determined by science-and Comte did believe that in the future industrial needs will dictate to poets and artists what they are to do; their fuuction will be that of stimulating people, by artistiC means, to achieve the desired productive results. As it seemed to his critics, this took all culmral initiative away from tbeartist. They also criticized him for his opinion that scientific hypotheses are just as verifiable as facts-according to them, this was the error that led Comte to atheism, for he destroyed the very idea of faith


when he replaced it with a monopolistic rule of science over the human mind.

These criticisms, however, made no great impression, nor did they check the spread of Comte's ideas, save on the score of his program for a positive religion: from the outset, the leading popnlarizers of Comteanism, especially Littre, had quietly removed this superstructure. Although a Comtean secular church has survived down to this day, it has nowhere played a significant part in intellectual life. Comte's doctrine has been influential, not in its complete "universal" version, but only fragmentarily. What might be called its "scientistic" features became a lasting part of subsequent positivist thought: the Law of the Three States, the rejection of metaphysics, faith in the essential unity of the scieuces, the ideal (actually unattainable, as Comte himself admitted; a normative guideline rather than a program) of reducing all knowledge to a single universal formula, and the interpretation of knowledge as ultimately of practical value or nothing. Comte's sociology has turned out to be important, not so much for its historiosophic content as for its clear formulation of methodological principles that have subsequently been adopted by many sociologists. These include the treatment of social facts as realities sui generis, independently of their psychic background; ahandonment of the social-contract theory; the treatment of human thought, science, belief, and modes of behavior as social facts par excellence-that is, as referring not to individuals but to the collectivity.

The Law of the Three States is in rongh approximation correct concerning the history of science. Comte formulated the tendencies characteristic of modern scientlfic knowledge in periods of normal development, though at certain critical moments it unexpecteclly discloses more in common with philosophical thought than Comte suspected. His basically phenomenalist attitude to the world (we do not penetrate into the "nature" of things or investigate underlying "canses," but merely boil down the multiplicity of phenomena to "laws") long seemed

AUGUSTE COMTE

merely to represent the actnal attitude of researches in a number of fields of knowledge. It was some time before doubts arose concerning the notion of "fact," the fetish that Comte took for granted as self-evident. Eventually such doubts led to abandoning the conception of science as a fact-gathering activity purely and simply, an agency whose task has ended once "laws" summing up the facts have been arrived at.

To be sure, some parts of the Comtean doctrine that strike us as absurd today (apodictic pronouncements as to what science may and may not concern itself with, the dogmatic rejection of certain fields of knowledge as unproductive or "metaphysical," belief in the absolute permanence of the basic divisions of the world and fascination with botanical and zoological classifications as models of scientific thinking, excessive enthusiasm for "order," the picture of the world as made up of neatly labeled, indexed, filed "contents") are not direct consequences from positivist premises. Nevertheless, they demonstrate one possible way-a way that remains possible today-of interpreting those premises, a way that could endanger the progress of knowledge if taken seriously. Comte realized, of course, that scientific research cannot be carried on in flat obedience to immediate practical demands, that it must be guided by purely theoretical considerations in order ultimately to produce practical results; he grasped that the most fruitful discoveries in the history of science, including those that underlie all our latter-day technology, were born of cognitive curiosity. More than that, he was a,.vare that the "theolocricar' and the "n1ctaohvsicaI" staobes of

" ' 0

human thought were preconditions for science's eventual "posi-tive" flowering. For all that, when he turns to consideration of the new era his own work opens up, in which the totality of knowledge-as represented by its final component, sociologyhas entered the positive stage, his historicism suddenly becomes impotent, and all his previous reservations disappear. Everything relative in scientific development now becomes a thing of the past, and now that the absolute state has been attained (at least


in respect to basic principles) there is no further place for historical criteria. Like other Messianic doctrines, Comte's scientistic one never considered the chance that it might in time itself become a matter for historical appraisal and relativization. Comte had an admirable historical understanding of everything except his own place in history.

We have no reason to wonder whether this philosophy has a right to be called positivist-even measuring it against the stereotype of positivism current in onr own day. It is a positivism, though largely expressed in categories typical of the epoch that produced Hegel and Romantic philosophy generally. It represents an all-embracing historiosophic construction, crowned by a Messianic vision all its own. This construction is actually deterministic in character although it renounces metaphysically conceived causality in favor of phenomenalistically interpreted laws. It also holds out the hope of a total transformation of the world and the impending advent of the absolute state, thanks to the advance of scientific knowledge. Its rehabilitation of Christianity and medieval culture connects it with other productions of the Romantic era, although in Comte this has a sense all its own. His is no worship of the past as such, no respect for tradition merely because it is tradition: after all, he recognizes real progress even in respect to religious forms and hence the authentic historical continuity of tbe human species. On this score he breaks away from the eighteenth-century cliche of "the ages of darkness and superstition." Also, Comte's scientistic ideals are combined with a firm conviction that man is essentially an affective being-that only affective stimuli induce him to act, and that rational thought is at the service of practical needs. On the other hand, Comte believed that it is possible to achieve a state in which mankind, having clearly recognized its own invariable needs, will effectively barmonize emotional needs with rational prediction, and thus be transformed into an "organic" mankind within which conflicts will cease to arise.

The last-mentioned ideal also presupposes the interpretation of

AUGUSTE COMTE 7'

man as a being whose existence is completely determined by his place in society, i.e., that, strictly speaking, individual existence is a fictioll. On this score, too, Comte does not hesitate to carry his premises to their ultimate consequences. His "organic" interpretation of society involves the extremest anti-individualism, derealization of the human individual, worship of Humanity as the only real individual-all this is explicitly formulated in his writings. In this respect, Comteanism brings to mind certain totalitarian utopias elaborated in the age of the Enlightenment. However, these components of Comte's docuine, which ally him with conservative critics of the French Revolution, and which later became essential convictions of the totalitarian Right, do not really make him a prototype of the totalitarian ideologies: the latter have been expressed in much "purer" form by determined apologists for the past who did not wrap them up, so to speak, as Comte does, in scientistic ideals. The real influence of Comte's thought has centered around two strands within his docuine-his anti-metaphysical program for Imowledge, and his autonomous, anti-psychological sociology. The generations immediately after him, as is so often the case, broke up the organic unity of his doctrine, picking out what they could use, ignoring what they could not. Thus Comte, tbe utopian visionary, the fanatic for a "once and for all" social order, the pope of a "finished" system of thought, is one thing-the Comte who has considerably influenced latter-day sociology and the theory of science something else again. However, if the history of positivism is to be understood, it is important to keep in mind, not just this more "viable" Comte, but also the "forgotten" Comte-not just because the latter demonstrates the dependence of each successive version of positivist philosophy upon the dominant "style of the age," but also because conceptions of positive knowledge and ideals of social reform have always been logically connected in this doctrine, and it is hard to achieve historical nnderstanding of either apart from the other. Comte's philosophy does away with human subjectivity entirely. Person-


ality in the suhjective sense is a specnlative fiction from the point of view of the criteria of positive science; it is also a fiction from the sociological point of view, and can be treated as such in projects for social reconstruction. As a theorist of science, Comte is in fact heir to Hume and ancestor of many a subsequent positivist doctrine. As for his social theory, it certainly does not follow logically from his theory of science, but the link between the two was so close and so explicit in Comte's own mind that it is impossible to disregard it. Positivist criteria, in characterizing the human individual exclusively by his objectively ascertainable place in inter-individual communication, have invalidated, so to speak, subjective individuality as a possible object of study. Thereby they have made an irreversible contribution to the establishment of new boundaries between science and philosophy, though they have not as yet succeeded in destroying the latter once and for all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Positivism Triumphant

Durino- the ten years followino- Comte's death, European cul-b. b

ture was euriched by the following works, among others: The Origin .of Species by Charles Darwin, Introduction to Experimental Medicine by Claude Bernard, Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, the first volumes of Herbert Spencer's System, and the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx. In their different ways, each illustrates a trend away from Comte's utopianism.

The Messianic hopes cherished in the period known as the "Springtime of Nations" were now in eclipse, utopian socialism among them. A more empirical, experimental approach to social phenomena was finding expression. Socialist thonght was ceasing to be a collection of visionary dreams and, instead, waS drawing strength from slow but real advances being made by working-dass movements. In the sciences, a number of recent discoveries suggested that a new synthesis was becoming possible, that there was a basis for unifying the ever proliferating, ever more tightly "specialized" sciences. The principle of the conservation of energy supplied one such formula, applying, as it seemed to do, to all natural phenomena. The theory of evolution was another, for it encompassed the totality of organic phenomena, induding human life. Advances in the biological sciences were especially notable at this time, and deeply influenced certain aspects of positivist thought.

I. Claude Bernard: The native positivism of science. The thought of Claude Bernard in particular illustrates the impact


of developments in biology and the trend away from the more grandiose aspects of Auguste Comte's positivism. Although be had literary ambitions in his youth, Clande Bernard (I81)-I878) was not a philosopher even in intention. His life was devoted to research in the fields of medicine and physiology, which earned him worldwide fame. At the same time, however, he gave noteworthy expression to "the scientific attitude," and himself supplied a model of it. Tireless and scrupulous in experimental research, he exemplified modesty and impersonality in the making of scientific claims and remained deliberately, consistently nentral on all philosophical questions.

His discovery of the glycogenic function of the liver, his studies of the pancreas and tbe physiology of the nervous system, and of the action of such poisons as curare and carbon monoxide-these are regarded, not just as essential contributions to physiology, but as marking a real turning point in the history of science. The principles of scientific method and rules of experimental procedure he set down in his Introduction to Experimental Medicine and some shorter works have become the canon of modern scientific method and of the positivist tradition.

Claude Bernard was highly critical of Comte's doctrine. In his view, the religion of humanity was even more absurd than the already existing religions, and he did not believe that Comte's "positive state" could ever become historical reality. He took the line that human beings will never cease to reflect on the first causes and to search for a purposeful order in the conditions of their existence, bnt that snch reflection and such search for meaning fall ontside the domain of knowledge. 1nsolnble problems have no place in science. Actually, were "first causes" ever to be discovered, something like the end of the world wonld have come about, for there would be no spur to futther investigation. Mankind would have attained the Absolute. F ortunately, there is no reason to take such a prospect serionsly.

Nonetheless there is a certain relation to Comte in the more

POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT 75

fundamental features of Bernard's thinking, for all that they derived from his own experimental research rather than from tbe writings of Augnste Comte. His basic rules of scientific method can be stated in a few simple sentences:

First, the scientist shonld submit unreservedly to the facts, and sacrifice without hesitation any theory that is clearly incompatible with the facts.

Second, scientific investigation can be effective only on the assumption that all phenomena are strictly determined. This determinism, however, is not a metaphysical theory of the universal inevitability of things, but rather a rule of thnmb, a methodological principle. It assumes that the same phenomena occnr under the same conditions, and that if the results of an experiment are unexpected, we should look for unknown conditions to acconnt for them. The purpose of science is to discover relationships between phenomena and the conditions under which they occnr, to ascertain links between matters of fact and the mechanisms that govern their occurrence. For this pnrpose, we are to refrain from any and all reflection on "underlying principles," and are never to ask "Why?"

Third, science is absolutely neutral where philosophical questions are concerned. Whether materialist or "animistic" (in Claude Bernard's terminology), metaphysics bas no heuristic value for positive knowledge; nor is it possible to formnlate any metaphysics in such a way as to permit experimental verification. Although philosophic thinking is a "natnral" phenomenon in the sense that it reflects a real need of the human mind, it may not assign limits to science nor ask science to solve chimerical problems.

Fourth, one crncial way of settling scientific questions is the method Claude Bernard called "counter-proof." Here he formulated an idea that is perhaps more widely known today in Karl Popper's formulation of it: No scientific hypothesis can be regarded as established sO long as the scientist knows only the facts that confirm it and has not undertaken to discover facts


that disprove it. Educationally speaking, the principle is an essential one: setting up experiments to disprove a given hypothesis is a fundamental featnre of "scientific morality." Ignoring it is to enconrage the all-too-hnman tendency to facile explanation, rash generalization.

"The whole of natnral philosophy is summed up in a single phrase: to discover the laws that govern phenomena. Even the most elaborate experiment comes down to predicting and Controlling phenomena." These words most concisely sum up Claude Bernard's thought and at the Same time show its essential affinity with Comte's. Science is inconceivable without determinism, but the latter is taken in a purely phenomenalist sense: in order to formnlate any laws at all, we have to assume that identical conditions produce identical phenomena; science admits of no accidental occurrences or "exceptions" to its "rules" -if by this term we mean anything more than our ignorance of the factors that alter the COurse of the phenomenon observed.

Furthermore, Claude Bernard believed that once biology has rid itself of metaphysical "vital principles," final causes, unproductive, purely verbal disputes as to the meaning of life, and adherence to auy and all confining "systems" whether of thought or feeling-then we will become aware of the homogeneity all phenomena display and be better eqnipped to describe them as such. What appears as a distinction between two cognitive and existential orders-the organic and the inorganic-derives from vitalistic prejudices. In the eyes of science life is not the product of some distinct mysterious force: it is a continuous process of combustion and assimilation, and although it is governed by regnlarities that neither physical nor chemical laws account for -above all the evolutionary properties that determine the development of a seed in one specific way (the "egg's memory") -these regnlarities can be ascertained only as an empirical sequence of morphological and chemical changes, just as in any other scientific domain. The ultimate cause of invariability in organic development is not a legitimate object of scientific i11-


quiry. Human thought, toO, is a biological fact. The brain is an organ like the others, and thinking is an organic function,not some mysterious product of some mysterious subjectivity. Scientific interpretation of the evidence cannot lead to any other conclusion.

Yet Claude Bernard did not regard scientific activity as purely utilitarian. Although the social purpose of science is to enable us to manipulate things, he does not seem to conclude from this that the meaning of empirical statements is reduced to practical directives. Snch statements describe that part of the real world that is accessible to human cognition. The scientist devises experiments and advances hypotheses, but when it comes to describing his results he must keep his personal involvement to a minimum and be completely obedient to nature's indications. Claude Bernard was aware that it is easier to formulate this principle than to apply it in practice: it demands an attitude of constant and utmost alerrness against preconceived ideas, personal preferences, and the authority of men and words. He also warned against abuse of the classificatory principle. It is not enough to label a phenomenon and assign it a subdivision in a rank order. It is not correct classification that matters, but nnderstanding the mechanism governing the phenomena.

Claude Bernard was not overconcerned with perfect precision in his reflections on scientific method. He merely took cognizance of the rules that gnided him in his work and that he had found adequate. First he investigated, then reflected on what he waS doing; to reverse this order, as Bergson subsequently observed, never produces results. He took the notion of "fact" for granted and knew what he had in mind. Many of his ideas have an "unfinished" character, and many were elaborated more carefully by later methodologists. The special role his Int1'Oduction has played in the history of scientific method is due to the fact that it was a direct outgrowth of his laboratory investigations, not the work of a methodologist who prescribes rules for scientists while doing no scientific research himself.


Also, his formulations reflected the needs of contemporary science.

This is not the place to evaluate Claude Bernard's contribution to a so-called methodology of science. His importance in philosophical reflection consists in tIus, that he was perhaps the first to formulate so clearly the dividing line between philosophy and science. He made no attack on philosophy, but simply regarded it as a different kind of activity from scientific research. Though plulosophy may now and then stimulate an individual scientist (not by supplying hypotheses to be tested, but by engaging his feelings and intellectual interests), it can never hope to define the tasks of science or acconnt for the results of research. This separation between science and philosophy, not surprisingly, has been interpreted in different ways. It has been maintained that specifically philosophic statements are meaningless, devoid of cognitive content, socially harmful. It has also been maintained that the task of philosophy is to provide interpretations of reality that cannot be provided by scientific methods, even that philosophy gains access to spheres of being inaccessible to scientific investigation. However, the point of view that Claude Bernard expounded in especially striking form became permanently rooted among both scientists and philosophers, with very few exceptions. Bergson, Husserl, and Heidegger, who have seriously criticized the extremer forms of "scientism," all take the separation for granted.

2. A positivist ethics: John Stuart Mill. For a very long time the English did not read German writers, so their own refleetions are not attempts to refute or go beyond the doctrines of the German idealist metaphysicians. In this respect England differed from France, or at least English thinkers from French philosophers. This is why nineteenth-century English philosophy shows an easily discernible continuity with its own tradition of the Enlightenment. The empiricism of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) does not differ essentially from Hume's. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a very brief exposition of his


thought, concentrating on those parts that disclose a new aspect of the "positivist spirit," namely, his utilitarian ethics.

Like Comte, John Stuart Mill was interested in the practical reform of society. Comte's work at first made a tremendous impression on him, and in fundamental questions pertaining to the theory of knowledge he shared Comte's ideas; not so in the field of sociology, however, nor in projects for the futnre organization of society. Comte's social system, Mill says, "as unfolded in his Systeme de Politique Positive, aims at establishing ... a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarians among the philosophers." As for his own social views, he writes that at first he· had thought it possible to temper social inequalities by universal instruction and limitation of natural population growth; he had been, as he puts it, a democrat but not a socialist. With time he reached the conviction that a considerably greater transformation is both possihle and necessary, and that the essential question the future mnst settle is that of how to combine the greatest possible individual freedom of action with common possession of the world's raw materials and equal shares to all men of the profits derived from work performed in common. Thus Mill's social thinking took a socialist direction, although he never supposed his ideals could be realized in any way save through slow, gradual reforms.

Mill's philosophical work was intended as part of his educational activity in the popularization of his ideals. He regarded his System of Logic-an extremely long, extremely pedantic book, unusually precise by the standards of his age-as his contribution to the struggle against superstition, outmoded tradition, and uncritically accepted opinion. He thought that false metaphysical and social doctrines, like harmful political institutions, are based primarily on the belief that the human mind can arrive at true knowledge of the world without observation and experience. Accordingly, his logic is built upon radically empiricist prenilses and on associational psychology; he con-


sidered the latter to be the foundation of all rational knowledge about man.

The leading ideas of Mill's theory of knowledge derive directly from Burne, although his logic in the strict sense introduces many novelties and improvements that are regarded as marking great progress in the history of this discipline. Be defined the task of logic more exactly than his predecessors. In his opinion it formnlates the mles of reasoning, and is not a description of the world; be also drew a dear distinction between logic and tbe tbeory of knowledge. According to him, the rnles of reasoning are valid because tbey are the laws of tbe psycbology or pbysiology of thinking. This tbeory, called psychologism, dominated logicians down to the beginning of tbe twentieth century when Busserl's radical criticism of it caused it to be almost completely abandoned. Mill's formulation and detailed exposition of the canons of inductive reasoning in the empirical sciences are held to be important achievements; these canons are considerably more exact than tbose previously expounded by Francis Bacon. By way of investigating similarities, differences, and parallel changes in events, they are intended to ascertain causal connections between pbenomena. Tbey are rules for testing hypotheses ratber than rules for discovering previously unknown regnlarities, and are modeled on the methods actually used by scientists. Mill did not ascribe any metaphysical meaning to the concept of "cause," he interpreted it in a purely empirical sense: i.e., roughly speaking, to him a cause is any phenomenon that observation discloses to be the sufficient condition of anotber phenomenon. Mill's entire theory is based on strict adberence to the rules of empiricism and associationism: what is actually given in human knowledge is individual impressions; the cognitive subject is merely a sequence of impressions, and external bodies are never experienced in any other way. The existence of the pbysical world is reduced to the constant possibility of the impressions we experience, and in this perspective tbe metapbysical problem in the strict sense


does not arise. The main purpose of science is to· group its trutbs in such a way as to enable us to encompass at one glance the greatest possihle range of tbe nniversal order. On one essential point Mill's empiricism is carried fartber tban Hume's: according to Mill, the so-called deductive sciences, too, are entirely based on experience (be is not clear about tbe difference between the question of method and tbat of origin). Tbe "necessity" attributed to mathematical propositions is an illusion, for tbe axioms referred to by any deductive reasoning are in reality results of experience. Thus, altbougb buman knowledge is taking on an increasingly deductive character, deductive reasoning merely serves to make tbinking easier, to combine-automatically, as it were-various observations in order to give tbem coherence. For instance, Mill says, if b always follows a, and c always follows b, we may infer that a will always be followed by C; this is an elementary deductive reasoning, and the rule permitting this inference itself derives from observation. But there are no truths a priori, Le., truths whose alleged necessity can be established witbout appealing to observation; the elementary trutbs of geometry are merely the results of observation. The syllogism does not lead to new knowledge, since its conclusion is always implicit in the premises; we must know the conclusion before we can formulate tbe premises, and so syllogistic reasoning is caugbt up in a vicious circle.

Mill's empiricist doctrine is most clearly associated with his ideas in the domain of "practical reason." Tbe same tendency that in science does away witb metapbysics in favor of psycbology, in ethics does away with valuation based on intention in favor of valuation based on results. Mill's essay on this ethical doctrine is entitled Utilitarianism.

Tbe essential principles of utilitarianism were not originated by Mill. Jeremy Bentbam (1748-1832) had expounded tbem in his Principles of Morals and Legislation and other works. Bentbam carried the ideas of the Enlightenment practically uncbanged into the nineteenth century. His enormous inRuence


on English political thonght snggests that in England the boundary between the culture of the Enlightenment and the cultnre of the industrial nineteenth centnry was far less clearly drawn than on the Continent.

Benthanl was primarily interested in legislation because he believed that rational laws based on the psychological laws of association will unfailingly secure the domiuance of moral patterns of conduct in society. One of his titles to fame was a project for a model prison. However, all his life he sought to

allay the rigors and abolish the cruelties of the penal system. And he constantly reflected on how to devise legislation to

bring security and prosperity to all. Bentham's utilitarian ethics is founded on a purely descriptive

statement. It says that human behavior is entirely motivated by the desire to gain pleasure and shnn pain. Utilitarianism takes this fact for granted as the foundation of its social doctrine. Utilitarianism itself is a normative formula, according to which human actions are praiseworthy or the reverse depending on whether they increase or decrease the sum of human happiness. It must be added that to Bentham the terms "the good," "pleasure," "utility," and "profit" are synonymous. The interest of society is identical with the interests of the individuals who make it up. The principle of utility applies universally, without exception, in both private and public relations, and from it we can derive norms regnlating every sphere of human life. The principle itself cannot be proved, but shonld be sct down at the beginning of every demonstration; after all we cannot ask for proofs ad infinitnm. The principle of utility has this advantage, that everyone is actually gnided by it, as is apparent from the fact that even its critics unconsciously appeal to it. For instance, ascetic morality, which is seemingly at the opposite pole from the principle of ntility, rests upon the same principle though falsely interpreted: those who profess such a morality have observed that the pursuit of pleasure is often accompanied hy unpleasant experiences, and they absolutize this ohservation in

POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT

the rule that bids us refrain from all pleasures in order to avoid pain. In other words, they apply the same principle, only they fail to live up to it. Similarly those who place the will of God above the principle of utility are actually appealing to the latter. For how do they decide what is the will of God? By showing that it is just, hence good, hence useful. In short the criterion of utility is applied so universally that what is needed is not so much to prove it as to become conscious of its implications and to ascertain the factual circumstances of life in order to apply it infallibly. Therefore Bentham imagined that once the sources and varieties of pleasure and pain have been properly classifiedwhich is the very undertaking he set himself-and once a scale for measuring them according to a few criteria has been designed (intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity, extent), then it will be possible to apply rules derived from the basic principle in every particular connection and to decide infallibly concerning the value of every human action.

This theory, derived from Hume, Helvetius, and Beccaria, was intended to supply the rational foundations for a perfect moral code in which every human action could be properly evaluated. As a result, legislation and ethics were to become as exact as the mathematical sciences.

Clearly, Bentham's confidence in the normative omnipotence of the principle of utility was rooted in the Enlightenment's belief in an essential harmony between individual aspirations and the social interest, and in the possibility of doing away with all social conflicts by means of rational legislation. We need not add that whereas Bentham appealed to the principle of utility in order to defend parliamentary democracy, others (for instance, Godwin) in the name of the same principle advocated the ideals of an egalitarian anarchism or even purely theological doctrines.<

One of the active propagators of Benthamism was James Mill, whose son, John Stuart Mill, took over this doctrine and introduced a number of corrections and further distinctions in


response to criticisms and for polemical purposes. But the main tenets remained as before. Mill agreed that the supreme rule governing human actions-in other words, the supreme value or ultimate purpose of life-cannot he proved: whether a thing is good in itself, not just as a means to an end, lies beyond discussion, is by definition unprovable. But recognition of the principle of utility is not the result of caprice or arbitrary decision, it rests upon an immediate, universal, and uniformly accessible intnition (not of the kind operating in particular observations, but rather of the kind that underlies our recognition of the axiomatic truths of science). The only "proof" that happiness is desirable is the circumstance that mankind does in fact desire it: similarly, the only way to prove that a thing is visible is to show that we do in fact see it. In turn, if we are to make infallible decisions in conflictual situations, if the moral code is to operate efficiently and settle all particular cases unequivocally, the basic principle, i.e., the supreme value, must be one and one only: or, if there has to be more than one, then the principles must be arranged in a clear hierarchical order.

The ultimate purpose of every kind of valuation and every kind of commandment or prohibition is a life as free of suffering and abounding in as many of the highest pleasures as possible. "Pleasures" and "pains" are not to be taken here in a purely biological sense: the principle of utility encompasses specifically human exl'eriences, which we usually value higher than those that animals share with us. The last-mentioned rule, too, is based on universal consensus: after all, no one would agree to exchange the fate of an unsatisfied man for that of a satisfied animaL

There remains the question of rnles governing particular choices, which requires exact standards for comparing alternative goods. In this matter, according to Mill, we should consult the opinion of men who have tried both of two possible alternatives. The principle of utility affords a rational basis for choosing between different kinds of conduct, both conceivably


desirable. 1£ some choices are nonetheless hard to make, this is due to the complexity of human relationships. However, there is nothing to prevent us from continually improving on the various rules for our guidance, and we may hope one day to achieve perfect exactitude in this matter.

"Utility" or "happiness" is defined as the supreme value not in respect of the individual, but of all men: morality is the system of rules that envisages the greatest happiness of all: it is assumed that all specifically human pleasures are accessible to every man individually. Mill was convinced that the basic sources of suffering-poverty, sickness, failure-can be completely controlled. The utilitarian rule does not exclude the value of sacrifice insofar as it may be useful to someone, and insofar as it does not denote self-inflicted suffering for another purpose. The motives of our actions are not the object of moral rules: they refer to the rule of dury, but it is not assumed that a mode of conduct must be motivated by a sense of dnty for it to be moral. The criteria of utilitarianism do not refer to the value of the agent, but to the consequences of his actions: evaluation of the action and of the agent are independent of each other, although value of an individual can be determined only on the basis of his conduct as a whole.

Mill did not in the least set out to change current nonns of behavior or to invalidate recognized values. On the contrary, he believed that values asserted by other doctrines could be readily integrated in the utilitarian code. For instance, the value of justice, i.e., the conviction that certain claims are legitimate, is unchanged: it is enough to ascertain that every kind of claim can be evaluated by the standard of universal utility.

Such, briefly stated, is the utilitarian theory. As can be seen, it is based on the following assumptions, among others:

I. The objects of moral valuations are not moral values but other kinds of value.

2. It is possible to compare all human goods without exception,


i.e., it is possible to discover a rule that reduces all goods to a certain homogeneous scale.

3· There is a universal and primary intuition that justifies the principle of utility.

All these assumptions have been subjected to criticism. Adherents of Kantian and other transcendental ethics have rejected utilitarianism chiefly on account of the first of the assumptions mentioned. According to them, this doctrine ignores or even excludes specifically moral motivations-those that Kant particularly stressed when he said we must do our dutv because . . , It IS a duty, not for any other reason, at least if our conduct is to deserve moral approval, whereas urilitarianism bids us evaluate human actions by their consequences, so that an action performed out of a sense of duty has the same moral value as the same action performed out of vanity or under constraint. In the eyes of those brought up in the spirit of Kantianism, this idea simply annihilates moral values as separate and distinct from biological values. Although Mill distinguishes between the value of the action and that of the agent, the distinction as he interprets it does not get around this objection, since evaluation of the agent coincides with evaluation of a large nnmber of his actions.

Other critics do not regard this objection as essential. They agree that in the overwhelming majority of Cases it is hard to discover other practical standards of evaluation in our world. But they object to two other features of the utilitarian doctrine.

The first, they feel, is a sort of mystification involved in the utilitarian claim to cognitive grounds. The falseness of Mill's analogy between the relation "seen-visible" and the relation "desired-desirable" is so obvious that it scarcely needs to be mentioned (what is "visible" is that which can be seen, not that w~lich desc:ves to be seen). Less glaringly false but equally mIsleading IS another principle on which the utilitarians rely a great deal, and which they take for a descriptive statement of human conduct: "Men always strive for happiness." Close


scrntiny shows readily enough that every kind of human conduct confirms this thesis (a man who strives for suffering obviously finds happiness in suffering, a man who sacrifices himself obviously finds a source of pleasure in sacrifice, etc.). In other words, this theory, just like the old doctrine according to which "man is always selfish," can always be justified because it is at bottom tautological: it does not discover any specific characteristic in empirically known varieties of human conduct but merely calls "happiness" that which men strive for. The doctrine cannot be refuted, that is, it is impossible to point to any conceivable fact that would contradict it; any conceivable fact will always confirm it. Thus the theory does not meet the condition required of really empirical assertions: it is a definition presented in the gnise of a description. For this reason it cannot Serve as a descriptive premise indispensable to any normative code; yet Mill maintains that the supreme rnle of utilitarianism comes down to the assertion that there is an innate impulse to happiness in all human beings. Since this alleged discovery is a purely tautological statement, it cannot serve as fouudation for an effectively applicable code of moral standards.

The second, perhaps more important objection, emphasizes the utter uselessness of Mill's theory in practice. To accept it we must believe that a common measure for all values is to be discovered in the human world, that it is possible to put something like an exchange valne on emotional qualities, reducing them all to one single quantitatively measnrable characteristic ("pleasure"). Could this really be done, moral conflicts could indeed be eliminated, for it would be possible to calculate which of any pair of alternate possibilities of human conduct is the more valuable in a given situation. But the conception of one uniform scale of values is altogether fictitious, and on this score utilitarianism is as hopeless as all monistic normative systems (i.e., those that seek to set up a single principle of valuation capable of arriving at infallible moral decisions in any and every concrete situation). The world of values is differentiated


qualitatively, and any single standard of valuation is arbitrary and artificial. Human conflicts are caused by the lack of uniformity with which simations demanding choice present themselves. One example of this lack of uniformity is the irreducibility of hnman individuals to a single scale, and hence the impossibiliry of deciding which of two individuals' goods carries the greater weight in a given simation when each of them experiences the simation in his own way. Even if we could predict what pains will be linked witb the pleasures expected-and, as is well known, such predictions are highly fallible-we could never manage to draw up sum totals of the positive and the negative possibilities and compare them like debit and credit columns in double-entry bookkeeping. In acmal fact our choices are guided by vague inmition or spontaneous impulse, and familiarity with the utilitarian principle is of no help in making a rational choice. This is why the utilitarian philosophy is incapable of resolving real conflicts and ineffective as an education in morals.

The utilitarian philosophy is rooted in the conviction that all human conflicts are traceable to insufficient knowledge, and that proper public instruction may result in a rational organization of the juridical system, and by the same tnken settle all conflicts between individual interests as well as between individual and social needs. Thus, at bottom, the utilitarian program relies on an implicit belief, characteristic of democratic philosophies, that all the values and qualities to be taken into account when we reflect upon society are those common to all meu, i.e., those that refer to the undifferentiated notion of "man" or '(mankind,"

This is not to imply in any way that utilitarianism reflects totalitarian aspirations .(though this may be suggested by Bentham's contempt for the metaphysics of "human rights"). What distingnishes Mill is, on the contrary, his championing of the greatest possible individual freedom in a rationally organized world. However, like the majority of nineteenth-century democrats, Mill treats human individuals as abstract and essentially


uniform elements in the juridicial system; that is, he believes that when individual freedom is as fully realized as possible (limited only by the rule that it must do no harr,n to others), tbe interests of all can be harmonized once a suffiCIently bIgh level of edncation is reached. In this system the human individual appears as the embodiment of the universal abstract essence of man plus a modicum of private preferences WhICh dJfferen~Iate him from others, and which he is left free to exerCIse prOVIded that his freedom is not incompatible with the rational interests of others. Man is conceived of as a sum total of specific generic needs and a few private needs, and it is assumed t~at . his generic needs can be satisfied by an intelligent socbl orgamzatlon, while his private needs can be reduced to the pomt where they will not matter to others, as is the case with a person's general

appearance, color of hair, etc. . ., In the light of experience that shows how strongly !llcl!;Iduals

can be affected by their desire to impose their ow~ bebefs or their own conception of happiness, aU these assumptions appear more than dubious. However, they were in keepmg wlth the spirit of the times that produced them, especially in England. The utilitarian conviction that all values are measurable IS merely tbe resolve to recognize as value only that which is measurable. The anti-Romantic tendency expressed in this statement ~an be discerned both in latter-day positivist philosophy and m the literary current usual! y associated with it. In this vie":,, .every kind of irrationality is an evil, but an evil that can be ehmmated by the progress ~f public enlightenment .. Even the severest criticism of the world does not, In these Circumstances, undermine the fundamental optimism of such a view of h'lman affairs.

3. Herbert Spencer: evolutionary positivism. We have already had occasion to mention the tremendous influence exerted on positivism by the biological sciences in th~ second !,alf of the nineteenth cenmry. The theory of evolutIOn contrIbuted crucially to conSOlidating the image of a world in which all situations in human life can be reduced to biological situations, and all


human institutions to instruments for biological survival. Thus it immensely strengthened and, so to speak, added a substructure to, an essential tendency that had long been inherent in the positivist style of thinking, and made it possible for the latter to

take on a more exact and more fn!!y elaborated form. Lamarck's theory of evolntion was based primarily on ohser

vation of morphological abnormalities in the development of animals and viewed these abnormalities as results of adaptation. In this sense the evolntionary processes were goverued by a kind of immanent teleology. By contrast, Darwin's theory of natural selection was in part conceived nnder the inflnence of Malthus's reflections on specifically human phenomena. Darwin assumed that the changes that occur in generic characteristics have a mutational, accidental character, and that only snbseqnently do certain of these changes turn ant to be useful, others harmfnl, to the existence of the genns. The usefnl changes are inherited, and in this way the best-adapted popnlations-but adapted as a result of accidental variations-survive in the struggle for existence, whereas others, which had happened to acqnire harmful characteristics, are doomed to extinction. The survival of the human species, too, can be accounted for within this schema, and specifically human characteristics-among them moral motivations and codes, religious beliefs, intelligent actions -can be interpreted in terms of biological usefulness, as instruments of the efficient adaptation that has secured for mankind sucb overwhelming superiority in the over-all ecology of the planet.

Discovery of links between man and the rest of organic nature, the possibility of interpreting specifically human capacities and institutions as instrumentalities for the satisfaction of biological needs, the inclusion of reason and civilization within the ecological situation of the species-all this favored tendencies characteristic of the positivist style of pllllosophizing. The theory of evolution made it possible for positivist thought to go beyond methodological programs and to apply our knowledge of

POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT 9'

biologieal regularities to all types of human conduct and creation. One synthetic conception of this way of thinking is to be found in Herbert Spencer's works.

However, Spencer (1820-1903) attempted to formulate the theory of evolution in such a form as to encompass not only organic nature but all spheres of existence, and he treated their transformations not merely as individual instances of the operation of identical evolutionary laws, but as aspects of one and the same process gradually extending to ever more differentiated areas of the world. The universality of evolution does not therefore merely come down to structural analogies between different lines of development, but to their all being dependent upon one and the same energy. According to Spencer, the guiding ideal of knowledge is to reduce it to a single formula or "supreme law," in other words, to account for the totality of phenomena by the operation of one and the same force. In a unified science unlike or qualitatively differentiated forms of , , transformation could be expressed in the same language. Like many positivists, Spencer looked forward to a systematic reduction of knowledge, thanks to which the seemingly irreducible multifariousness of the world will appear as different manifestations of one and the same cause.

Philosophy is to perform this task of unifying all knowledge. With a certain number of basic truths at its disposal-the indestructibility of matter, the continnity of motion, and the constancy of force (Spencer's conception of force does not coincide with that of physics and is not free of a certain vagueness)-philosophy looks for synthetic truths to encompass every sphere of investigation. It discovers certain laws equally applicahle to all. One of these laws, for instance, says that movement takes the line of least resistance. Another asserts that matter and motion are continuously redistributed, that integration of matter is always concomitant with dissipation of motion, and vice versa; thus constant transformations take place ill the universe, consisting now in integration with concomitant


loss of Illotion, now in disintegration with concomitant increase of motion.

We observe tbese two kinds of phenomena as evolution and dissolution, but evolution does not come down simply to an integrating process. It also-and primarily-consists in differentiation, in steadily increasing heterogeneity. At the same time, evolution is a single process, not a number of similar transformations; when the whole evolves, its components evolve, not in accordance with any principle of analogy, but as a result of a single energetic process. The evolution of the solar system is a part, not an analogon, of the evolution of the universe; the same applies to the evolution of the earth, of living organisms, of the human species, of society.

Thanks to this knowledge we can construct a concept of progress free of value judgment, and heuce ascertain what transformations deserve to be called progress without appealing to our own human interests. The standards supplied by the general theory of evolution are exact on this score. The nature of progress consists in increasing differentiation, i.e., passing from homogeneous to ever more heterogeneous structnres. Within the range of knowledge accessible to us, we observe this first in the history of the solar system: an originally homogeneous mass hegan to condense at certain points; this was followed hy ~ifferentiations in density and temperatnre, and later by rotatIonal movements. The history of the earth is a continuation of the same process: a homogeneous liquid mass became differentiated into various layers as it cooled and produced a hard crust; the latter in turn was at the origin of various climates depending on the degree to which various parts of it were expo~ed to the action of the sun. Next we can trace the process of dlfferentiation in the history of living organisms and in the hlstory of the human species, which is divided into differentiated races. The history of human societies presents tbe same p~cture. The origiually homogeneous collectivity began to be differentIated by the division of labor, then into rulers and


ruled, the spiritual and the secular authority, castes and classes. The institutions of civilization and the instruments of human survival evolve according to the same principle. Speech becomes differentiated in grammatical forms a., well as into different languages and dialects. Decorative artifacts serving ritual or political purposes gradually become differentiated starting from the primitive comn1on trunk into written characters, painting, and sculpture, and each of these branches grows smaller and more carefully differentiated sub-branches. Similarly, out of the race's original rites and rituals there gradually develop separate domains of poetry, music, and dance.

The ultimate cause of this indefatigable process of differentiation is unknown. The most general cause we do know is this: every action of a force produces more than one effect. The state of homogeneity is a state of precarious balance which, in any system, is upset by the actiou of the slightest force. Conseguently, every mass tends to become unbalanced, and this occurs inevitably, because the individual parts of a system are not uniformly exposed to the action of external forces. It is apparent, then, that differentiation is a self-reproducing process, every single differentiation is itself the source of the sncceeding ones, and the increasing complexity of effects is, so to speak, automatic. Each differentiated part serves as a nncleus for subsequent differentiations, for by being different from the other parts it is a source of specific reactions to its surroundings and thus multiplies the variety of active forces, and, by the same token, their effects. Therefore we may assume that the multiplication of effects proceeds in geometric ration to the increase in heterogeneity. In this way we arrive at the conviction that progress is not an accidental characteristic of the world, not a product of human will or imagination. It is the necessary result of transformations, and we may assume that this necessity is beneficial to the species.

This is not to claim that with this account we have penetrated the ultimate mystery of existcnce. Its ultimate secret is in-


accessible. Beyond the domain of science lies the domain of the Unknowable. At the end of every reflection on infinity, conscionsness, knowledge, we come np against a bonndary that knowledge will never cross. Every attempt to cross it by philosophical specnlation is illnsory and pnrely verbal. Materialists and spiritnalists qnarrel over words, for both assnme illegitimately that they nnderstand something that cannot be understood. Every advance of knowledge brings us np short against a wall beyoud which "somethiug" lies-but we do not know what it is. Materialist and spiritualist argnments are eqnally valid: the former grasp that what onr conscionsness experiences can be described as mechanical motion; the latter grasp that the actions of matter are accessible to ns only as facts of consciousness, and conclude that the forces active in the external world are of the same nature as conscionsness. But the dispnte between the two can never be settled. We have to distinguish between spirit and matter, but both must be understood as mauifestations of some other absolute reality, which we can never hope to know.

According to Spencer, this idea of a purely negative transcendence or the idea of an Unknowable can be of practical assistance in reconciling science with religion by setting proper limits to the claims of each. When we ask why religious beliefs are so universal or, more generally, inquire into the origin of religious feelings, it occnrs to us at once that they are at all events products of nature, and therefore mnst perform some nseful function in human life. Positive knowledge does not completely satisfy the mind, which invincibly aspires to something beyond cogoition and beyond the domain of any conceivable experience. Conseqnently there is a place for religion in hnman life, although this place is rigoronsly fenced off from scientific activity. Science consists of everyday observations, multiplied and perfected. Astronomy grows ont of snch simple observations as that the sun rises early in the summer, late in the winter; chemistry is based on snch observations as that iron

POSITIVISA1: TRIUMPHANT 95

rusts, fire scorches, and meat decays. Science is the systematic classification of facts of this kind, and its usefulness is obvions. Bnt since religions feelings and beliefs are, like science, "namral" resnlts of evolntion, we are compelled to acknowledge that religion and science can co-exist withont conflict, and that at the highest level of being there is something that nnites them and subordinates them to more general tasks. Because of the very natnre of our mind, extra-phenomenal reality or absolnte being is forever inaccessible to us; at the same time, belief in an absoInte beina is a necessary component of hnman conscionsness. to • Scientifically accessible phenomena can be treated only as phe-nomena, i.e., as manifestations of something else: the known world will always appear to ns as the manifestation of a world abont which we know nothing; incidentally, the same assnmption is made at least tacitly by every philosophy. Matter, Motion, Force-all are symbols of an nnknown reality. Even if science one day realized its ideal, redncing all knowledge to one allembracing formnla, it wonld merely be a systematization of experience that in itself adds nothing to the content of previonsly made observations. Science rednces knowledge to symbols, simplified and generalized as far as possible, bnt is inevitably confined to relative forms of existence and cannot go beyond them.

Religion is simply awareness of the bonndary beyond which cognition does not reach. Althongh it lays claim to positive knowledge of that which cannot be known, althongh it is expressed in false dogmas and assertions, it is important to man and irreplaceable. It saves man from being wholly swallowed np in immediate experience. Religion properly nnderstood mnst renounce apodictic prononncements abont the Unknowable, mnst cease to talk abont a personal God and similar beliefs without fonndation. It should recognize the limits of hnman knowledge and the nnlmowability of the nltimate canse. Religion and science are compatible, not becanse their contents are compatible, for religion has no positive contents at all, and science no


dogmatic limitations; they are compatible from a functional point of view so long as tbey do uot transgress their boundariessomething religion continually does. Religion is not any knowledge about the world, but awareness of the limits of knowledge, a direct contact, so to speak, with the barrier behind which the Unknowable lurks. Consciousness that this barrier exists is extremely important, for thanks to it we can get our knowledge into perspective; the dogmas of positive religions are a clumsy expression of this state of affairs.

Within the capacious categories of a positive knowledge so conceived, Spencer develops his theories of human society as a continuation and extension of cosmic evolution. Every form of society develops in accordance with natural laws, is never a man-made product. We also observe a real and far-reaching analogy between the structural and functional features of society on the one hand and the corresponding qualities of living organisms on the other. In hath cases we observe tremendous growth in the course of development, the progressive differentiation of functions, increasing interdependence of structural parts, and at the same time we see that the life of the whole is independent of the survival of the individual components.

To be sure, there are differences, but they are not essential, and often merely apparent. Thus it is true that society has no definite outer form, bnt the same applies to the lower organisms. The constituent parts of a society are not physically linked, but such links are absent also in the lower species, and moreover the "space" separating people is not empty but filled with institntions or other human creations, which are equally parts of the social organism since human life depends on them. It might be thought that the components of the social organism are mobile in a way different from the components of biological organisms, but this only appears so: though people move about like physical objects, as social components they no longer can do so, and organs remain unchanged although the cells are in constant flux. Even the observation that living organisms, unlike

POSITIVISM, TRIUMPHANT 97

social organisms, possess only a single organ of awareness is not quite exact: the social differentiation into educated and uneducated classes produces an analogon to the organic localization of conSCIousness.

On the whole, then, the organizational principles are identical in both cases. The division of the embryo into the endoderm, which gives rise to the alimentary system, and the ectoderm, from which the motor organs develop, has its social counterpart in the historical division between rulers and ruled (the latter being the food-producing class); and just as a third, vascular layer develops subsequently in tbe living organism, so society gives rise to a third intermediate class of merchants and middlemen. It is also easy to find counterparts of further specializations in organic tissue. Certain residual external forms (for instance, the segmentation of the annelids) have their social counterparts in anachronistic administrative divisions. Common to both types of organism also is a kind of competition among the individual parts. The influx of hlood into one organ causes loss of blood in another; similarly, the circulation of capital brings to mind the cixculation of the blood. Just as the ectodermal tissue, more sensitive than the others and more contractile, produces tissues specializing in contractility and sensitivity, so the more flexible and more talented ruling class specializes, in a way, by separating tbe executive from the legislative branches of government. Parliament, so to speak the brain of the system, balances the opposed interests of the various tissues.

Spencer calls speculations of this kind "transcendental physiology" ("transcendental" stands here for physiological principles formulated in such a way that they apply equally to all organic nnits-the "transcending" is of the individual disciplines). General relationships, for instance those between an organ's functions and its growth, or correlations between functional changes and development, have universal validity. The over-all pattern of organic development from the emhryonic stage onward (differentiation of organs and linking up of parts that perform

TH£ ALIENATION OF REASON

identical functious) is repeated iu the history of societies. Both biological and social organisms disclose three types of integrating processes: merger of tissues performing similar functions (cf. merger of Manchester with its suburbs), monopolization of functions by a given tissue while other tissues performing similar functions die oat (cf. monopolization of textile production by Yorkshire at tbe expense of western England), increasing spatial closeness between analogously functioning parts (cf. the concentration of certain trades in specific London districts). At the same time, transition to higher forms is associated with increasing independence of the external environment (greater rigidity of form, loss of elasticity, progressively increasing independence of the environment in chemical composition, weight, temperature, mobility).

Spencer believed that discovery of such strnctural and functional analogies represents a real contribution, not just to sociological but also to biological knowledge. Correct generalization makes it possible to deduce some properties of organisms from other empirically discovered laws; for instance, since the oxidation of tissues is a condition of life, we can predict that organisms whose surface is small in relation to their masS must have a separate breathing organ. Similarly, Once we have established that germs must become differentiated, we can predict their development if we know the differences in the action of external forces on the individual parts of the system. Of course, this does not account for everything: after all, a duck's egg will still hatch a duckling even when a hen sits on it. Heredity limits the influence of external circumstances, but we are unable to understand this phenomenon. On the other hand we observe the phenomenon of heredity in social life, namely in the inertia of tradition: for instance, colonies founded by various nations on foreign territories have kept the characteris~ics of the mother organism.

Spencer did not believe he owed anything to Comte. He did


not read the latter until late in life and found many ideas he regarded as false, doctrinaire, and altogether fantastic. Among these were many fundamental to Comte's system: the Law of the Three States, the classification of the sciences, the importance of ideas in history, and, needless to say, the religion of humanity with its authoritarian implications. Spencer also criticized Comte for completely neglecting the biological-evolutionary approach, for his failure to take into account the changeability of species. He exprcssed agreement on certain points that were not specifically Comte's but reflected "the spirit of the age" (such as the aspiration to create a scientific sociology, the organic interpretation of society).

In ethical matters, Spencer polemicized against Mill, and opposed an ethics of his own based on purely biological premises to the latter's utilitarianism. For all that, the fundamental ideas of utilitarianism mn through Spencer's thought. Spencer does not try to formulate principles generalizing current moral views, but wants merely to integrate moral phenomena within the general laws of natme. According to him, the biological law of the survival of the fittest is the only possible foundation for moral life, and there is no morality other than the one that takes for granted actually operating mles of co-existence-or rather struggle-governing human life; there is no "good" outside nature, and principles or ideals incompatible with the laws of nature are meaningless. The stmggle for survival and its consequencesthe elimination of the unfit-are laws actually operative, and they must be recognized as the norm in any scientific view of the world. In the last analysis Spencer's premise is the same as Mill's: we may regard as good only that which is a positive good in the biological sense. This excludes as possible goods whatever does not in practice increase pleasure and enhance human energies: "good intentions" or "good will," as well as actions motivated, for instance, by pity or benevolence are so excluded. Popular versions of Spencer's view of the world can


be found in literature at the turn of the century, particularly in Jack London's novels.

Briefly stated, the most important features of Spencer's thought are as follows:

I. Mechanism (reduction of changes occurring in the world and of cosmic and universal evolution to the mechanical operation of forces);

2. Belief in the oneness of the universe (not merely the similarity of all its metamorphoses): the totality of the world undergoes the same process, parts evolve in the same way as wholes;

3· Naturalism (rejection of any "good" different from biological usefulness; hiological interpretation of the divisions in society-the latter, incidentally, just a new and more detailed version of a traditional theme);

4· An empiricist theory of knowledge, despite the presence of transcendent horizons (science is the description of a great number of experiences, which adds nothing to their contents);

5. Religious agnosticism. It might be supposed that some important components of

Spencer's doctrine are incompatible with the positivist way of thinking, in particular his assumption that the phenomena observed by science are manifestations of something else, and hence must refer to some realm of the "noumenal" beyond observable reality. However, Spencer banishes the unobservable world from the entire domain of cognition also from lan"uage , - 0' to a sphere of vague feeling. Transcendence is no more than the sensing of the limit, and has no positive scientific .content. Therefore Spencer clings to the main constitutive features of positivism (abolition of the difference between essence and appearance; assertion of unity of method and of unity of the structure of the universe; a nominalist interpretation of knowl~dge as a well-ordered record, the systematizing and symbolizmg of current experience). One specific feature of this variety of positivism is the biological interpretation of the human world

POSITIVISM TRIUM.PHANT 101

and the legitimization of philosophy, which, though denied a method of its own, has its own task-to formulate a synthesis of the sciences.

Under the influence of Spencer and Mill there developed in England and outside it a broad intellectnal current embracing scientists as well as humanists, historians, and writers. It was characterized by the belief that science is entirely neutral on metaphysical questions and that it is possible to limit scientific knowledge to the symbolic record of experience. Under the influence of Spencer the history of morality and customs was studied in the spirit of biological interpretation, and analogies between social life and the behavior of living organisms were pursued in greater detail. Among other examples, the theory of races (Gobineau) may be regarded as an instance of this tendency to "biologize" the social world.

A certain inconsistency became discernible, however, between two leading positivist themes in this epoch-the one that was summed up in empiricist slogans, and the one that aimed at the perfect unification of all knowledge. Unity in the sources of cognition as a premise and unity in the results of cognition as a postUlate-these two aspirations conld not always be harmonized. The former pursued an image of the world completely cleansed of all "additions" to the experimental record; the latter, an image of the world free of contingency and qualitative differences. It was hard to reconcile the two; to radical empiricists, every kind of totalitarian-mechanistic or other-doctrine with aspirations to a universal accounting of phenomena savored of metaphysics. Some positivists leaned toward a naturalistic monism that laid stress on unitary elucidation of the world and abandoned many earlier positivist slogans (when Haeckel embraced Spinoza's monism, for instance, he committed himself to a metaphysical position of the kind that was most sharply condemned by all positivists). Others leaned toward a subjectivism that sought to eliminate from experience everything that did not


actually originate in experience; the contents thus reduced ofteu turned our to be psychological in character.

Positivism dominated the "spirit of the age" to such an extent that even Kantians sought to interpret Kant-or to amputate his thought-in such a way as to retain only what Was compatible with a broadly conceived positivism (Helmholtz, Lange). Kant's transcendentalism, his theory of the a priori conditions of knowledge, and the whole critique of practical reason were shelved; all Kant spoke about, it was found, was the part empirical psychological consciousness plays in shaping our image of the perceived world. All that was left was a purely biological relativism, and there were even attempts to give it a physiological foundation. The "thing in itself" was rejected as metaphysical, and this negative attitude toward metaphysics led to psychological subjectivism.

Mill and Spencer, next to the historians and novelists they influenced, made the most effective contribntion to a certain positivist attitude that was widely held in many European countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. Included in this attitude were opposition to the conservative historicism of the Romantics (i.e., refusal to grant value to anything merely because it is old, enduring, firmly rooted in tradition), exclusive recognition of "positive" values, and a tendency to rationalize social life. This positivism was marked by a passion for reform combined with the abandonment of irrational ideals rooted in tradition (nationalist ideals especially fell into disrepute); it professed the principles of social freedom, which it linked genetically with the conditions of competitive capitalism, but which it justified by biological theories and the principle of laissez taire. The latter ensures victory to the strongest, stimulates human energy and initiative, eliminates the weak, and favors the survival of individuals beneficial to the species. In terms of everyday life, the empiricist and anti-metaphysical theory of knowledge was interpreted as the conviction that only those human actions whose results are tangible, measurable,


and calculable are valuable, and that only those ideals deserve recognition that help make life easier, satisfy essential needs, speed up communication, and increase productivity. Contempt for "Romantic" valnes went hand in hand with the cult of positive science-a science whose task was not to solve metaphysical problems nor to choose between materialism and spiritualism, but to perform practical utilitarian functions. Hostility to religion, whether in the form of outright rejection of religious values and beliefs, or in the guise of a contemptuous agnosticism, was part of this view of the world, which may be regarded as dominant among the educated strata of European societies down to the 1880s, and in some countries even into the 1890s.

CHAPTER FIVE

Positivism at the Turn of the Century

I. The place of empiriocriticism in culture. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century positivist thought displayed snonger psycho logistic and subjectivist tendencies. As for the range of its interests, there was a noticeable return to questions concerning scientific method and genetic epistemology, while the desire for a general theory of progress or an all-embracing vision of social life was distinctly on the wane. One leading characteristic of this period was an attempt to do away with subjectivity: the subject or "self" now comes to be regarded as a construct without counterpart in reality, something added to the content of experience either illegitimately or purely for convenience.

The primary aim of this subjectivism without a subject was to formulate the idea of "pure" experience. For this purpose it Was necessary to track down those elements in the current scientific image of the world that had heen "thought into" itnot necessarily, nor even primarily, in order to reject them entirely, but in order to demystify them, to grasp their origin, and to assign them their proper place. This kind of positivism, the most complete philosophical exposition of which is known as Hempiriocriticism," was concerned above all with ucnetic

to

problems. It inquired into the origins and function of knowl-edge. asked whence it arose and what biological tasks it serves. It elaborated a psychological theory of knowledge and a program for experimental philosophy. It derives from Burne

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 105

and owed little to Comte-at any rate, neither Mach nor Avenarius, the two men who entirely independently of each other launched this "movement," were much interested in Comte or in their affinities with him. They had been brought up in the German philosophical tradition, and so their point of deparolre was very different from Comte's or Spencer's. The latter two thinkers took for granted the results achieved by the natural sciences in their day and envisaged a universal system without metaphysical underpinnings. Avenarius and Mach, on the other hand, asked fundamental questions concerning the meaning of all scientific statements and how far they are valid. To them, positivism Ca term, incidentally, they avoided, even rejectedAvenarius's disciple Petzoldt was the first to adopt it) was not so much the culminating synthesis of scientific knowledge as a return to a "natural view of the world," which they felt had been obscured by an uncritical acceptance of preconceived ideas for at least a century. This desire for naturalness and this search for an idea of experience purged of illegitimate "additions," relates empiriocriticism to the "modernist" ideologies of their day, which also retreated from the ideal of rationalizing the world and proclaimed a quest for some purely "natural" man.

The effort to discover man "as he really is," stripped of all mystification and adornment C which pass for natural 011.1y because they are strongly rooted in habit), is expressed in so many different ideologies that to group them together C even as "modernism") might seem a paradoxical undertaking. And yet, though it is hard to define, there is a real affinity between, on the one hand, Nietzschean biologism and the "philosophy of life" or "vitalism" to which it gave rise, and modernist literature and the variety of positivism that flourished at the turn of the century, on the other. What they have in common is their attempt to discover the source of all values in natural or primitive man, uninfluenced by scientific prejudices and other ha bits peculiar to civilization. Kant's question (though not his answers) as to the conditions under which knowledge is valid


was revived by this philosophical movement, which, though faithful to the essential assumptions of positivis~m, gave them new meaning.

A second peculiarity of this philosophy, which also relates it to much else in the intellectual climate of the period, was what might be called its "activism," its abandonment of the idea that human knowledge is the truer the more it submits to reality and the more faithfully it mirrors the laws governing it. Like the literary voluntarism of the period (in striking contrast to Zola's "experimental novel"), the empiriocriticist interpretation of knowledge is in keeping with an idea of man as a being primarily characterized by his active role in the world. "Pure experience" was not conceived of as a kind of mirror in which reality is reflected, but as the active life of man as natural, spontaneons organizer of all data. For this reason, attempts were made to invalidate the claims of science to "objective" knowledge, and these led to destruction of the concept of "fact." The latter demolition job was accomplished by physicists related to the empiriocritical school and the so-called conventionalist school of epistemology.

2. Avenarius: the idea of a scientific philosophy. Richard Heinrich Ludwig A venarius (1843-1896) was a professor of· philosophy, first at Leipzig and then from 1877 on at Zurich, where he died. In 1877 he founded the Vierteljahrschrift filr wissenschaftliche Philosophic, which he edited with Wundt and Heinz, and which was the most important philosophical organ of the new school. His prose makes very hard going: he sought deliberately to rise above the terminological habits of previous philosophy so as to eliminate the intellectual prejudices they conceal. Because of his numerous coinages and other linguistic complexities, be was read only by professional philosophers, for the most part very perfunctorily. As a result, his thought was long misunderstood and often misinterpreted.

A venarius was convinced that every science naturally aims at satisfying the desire for unity alive in the human mind. For


this reason each of them aims at a synthetic view of its field, ., a view governtM by some ultimate, supreme concept. It follows that only monism can satisfy this need for unity. Furthermore, every science-including logic and the theory of knowledge-is experiential in the genetic sense, and yet each by virtue of a kind of inertia tends to philosophy, which alone can secure the desired unity. Thus Avenarius starts from the assnmption of a certain epistemological monism, conceived not as an invented ideal, but as the description of Reason's aspiration in the world. If philosophy is a science-and Avenarius Was firmly convinced that it can and should be a science-it plays a special, irreplaceable part in realizing the mind's monistic aspirations. Like other sciences it is empirical and logical, but unlike them it deals with problems more general than those of any particular science. Its mission is to analyze and construct the coucepts that, in each and every science, perform a synthesizing function (i.e., embrace the totality of objects investigated by a given science), and eventually also the concepts that will serve to unify the totality of knowledge. For this reason philosophy must inquire into the fundamental principles of all experience. In this sense philosophy is indispensable to every science, if science is to satisfy its implicit need for unity: it is only in philosophy, namely, in the highest and most general concepts, that the sciences take on their definitive form. The goal of philosophy is to construct a nnified scientific view of the world, in which every particular discipline will be assigned its own place.

3· Avenarius: the critique of experience. Avenarius's Critique of Pure Experience (1888-1890), from which the philosophical movement under discussion derived its name, opens with an analysis intended to separate the actually "given" from all foreign additions. First of all, it must be noted that all human thinking is a response of the organism to some disturbance of its biological balance and, as such, is subject to the laws that govern all organic processes. Avenarius refrains from inquiring into the "nature" of the cognitive process or its "validity" in the


transcendental sense, undertaking rather an empirical investigation into the part played by cognitive processes in organic activity. That is, he treats cognition as a biological fact associated with the central nervous system. Every cognitive act aims at restoring the balance of the organism exposed to environmental stimuli. Expenditure of work and absorption of cnergy by the nervous system are processes A venarius calls "vital series." He distinguishes between independent-purely mechanical or chemical-series and dependent series, which result in cognition, i.e., in which restoration of balance involves a cognitive act.

In the nervous system many processes occur in which balance is restored immediately, but when they involve a cognitive act, we arc dealing with a dependent series and study its effects as the function of the organism's homeostatic tendency. Certain characteristics of cognitive contents (e.g., qualitative differentiation, pleasure, pain) are correlated with movements going on in the nervous system, but specific cognitive contents are always subordinated functionally to the needs of the organic system seeking to restore its balance. Philosophical doctrines such as idealist and materialist systems, also religious representations, can be evaluated from the same point of view: namely, we can ask under what conditions organic balance is restored by means of materialistic, idealistic, or theological ideas.

This is not to imply, however, that cognitive contents are wholly dependent on the individual organism's given situation. Needs are satisfied by way of co-operation, which reqnires a commnnicable store of experiences independent of individual contingencies. As science grows and develops, it gradually creates a store of ~'pure" experience-that iS

1 an experience in

dependent of individual persons-although the complete "purification" of experience in this sense remains an ideal yet to be realized.

Experience 1s not identical with the contents of sense-impressions, for traces of earlier impressions always help to determille the contents of present impressions. Nor onght we to

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

identify perception with impressions, for perception always involves a selection by means of which it constitutes its object out of those components that most readily give rise to the cognitive act, primarily the components that recur. Thns all perceptions involve something like intuition, and in addition elements derived from other sense impressions (for instance, in optical perception the third dimension originates in kinesthetic impressions). Thus experience invariably takes on a certain conceptual form, however rudimentary; it is a homogeneons combination of perceptions, which for their part are organized collections of impressions. What we call "experiment" (rather than "experience") consists of those collections of perceptions that are suitable for the construction of scientific concepts.

There is no way to get beyond experience. Even epistemological criticism mnst refer to it, and a valid theory of knowledge must be based on observation of actnal cognitive processes in their various aspects, and hence must make use of empirical psychology and anthropological data. The concept of experience is central to Avenarius's thought. Thanks to it we can construct a monistic interpretation of the world that does away with the "naive" (as Avenarius puts it) opposition between the physical and the psychical, also that between the "is" and the "ought to be." No such opposition exists in experience; only that which "onght to be" in experience, i.e., that which is regarded as an ought is in fact given. This paves the way for a scientific solution of ethical problems.

Abolishing the dualism between physical and psychical worlds in favor of one homogeneous "experience" is one of the most important resnlts of Avenarins's philosophy, achieved with the help of a few anxiliary concepts, which we will briefly describe.

4- Critique of "introjection." Co-ordination between the self and the environment. From the naive empirical viewpoint, A venarius says, psychical phenomena were treated as qualities or processes located in "the sou~" conceived of as a snbstantial entity different from the body, which determines vital goals.

lID THE ALIENATION OF REASON

Because of difficulties iuvolved in this naive theory, it was superseded by the naive-critical one that attempted to study "psychical phenomena" without reference to a "soul" and treated consciousness as "internal" in opposition to the Hexternal" body. The former attempt is a purely verbal expedient; as for the latter, It IS based on a widespread fallacy, which Avenarius calls "introjection." To have exposed this fallacy, he considered was one especially important result of his critique. '

According to Avenarius, we imagine falsely-and the error is not one of original experience, but the result of acquired preJudIces-that we can, in experience itself, distinguish the thing from our mental image of it. Thus we divide the world into things '(outside ourselves" and images "inside ourselves,"

and construct two. d~fferent realities, which are given philosophic expl~sslOn III dual~stJc systems. Now, this introjection (locating the. Images. of thlllgs III an alleged psychical "inside") is at vanance wIth the natural view of the universe, which should ~e tbe starting point for any scientific view of it. To be sure, ~n the natural view we divide experience into One portion that I~ "our own" (our bodies., thoughts, feelings) and another portion compo~ed of the bodIes around us. But this does not justify the assumptIOn of two dIfferent snbstances, still less two realities o~e outer and one inner, nor of parallel series in two intrinsicall; dIfferent worlds. Both things and ideas come into being as the res~lt of interaction between the central nervous system and the envIronment. Between myself and my environment there is a c.onstant. necessary relationship, which Avenarius terms "essential emplriocriticaJ ~o-ordination." Both terms of the relationship, however, fall wlthm the same experienced reality. Avenarius terms "self" the "central part" of this relationsilip, and the e~lv~ron~ent its "counterpart." In the cognitive act we always dlStmgmsh these two components. Each concrete "self" is correlated with a defi?ite ~ounterpart, and vice verSa. I experience other peop Ie as belllgs like myself, that is, I associate with their behavior a certain meaning that is not purely mechanical, I

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY I I I

treat them as "central parts" in the essential coordination. Their counterpart and "my own" may be identical, or we may be "counterparts" to each other.

It is at this point that the vicious principle of introjection comes in, a principle l'lpheld by psychologists, but at complete variance with the natural view of the world. For introjection induces us to interpret the not-purely-mechanical behavior of other people as a collection of "impressions found in ourselves," i.e., localized in the brain. Whereas, what we ought to assume is that when another persoll tells us of his impressions (e.g., when he says, "I see a stone") his words mean the same thing as my own when I state my experience. That is, I onght to assume that the same correlation occurs between the other man and the stone as between me and the stone. The trouble with the principle of introjection is that it transforms the "stone as seen" into a collection of impressions localized in the brain, and so conceived of as "impressions in myself." Thns introjection puts the object inside me as a thing seen, makes of it something "within myself," or the manifestation of something "outside" me. This is to reduce the environmental component to a mental component. Obviously, then, introjection goes beyond anything experience entitles us to conclude from it: namely, it interprets the meaning of another man's behavior as somehow different from my own behavior, it makes ns suppose that envirollmental components are images "inside" us, and hence that another man does not see the stone as I see it, but as an image "inside" him.

Such an "inner existence," such a division of the single homogeneous world into inner and outer, subject and objectall this is a purely man-made prodnct of introjection and has no fonndation in experience. By the Same token, every dualism or psychophysical parallelism is disclosed as a similarly smnggled-in prejudice. There is no "inside" and there is no need to internalize perception: we c}':perience things, not "inner images." In experience there is no opposition between "inn ern and "outer"the sense of the division is purely methodological. Experience

II2 THE ALIENATION OF REASON

is metaphysically neutral; it always includes an individual, but "self" and "stone" are components of experience in an identical sense, and the . difference between them consists in this, that "self)) contains certain additional components, for instance, feelings of pleasure or pain. Some parts of experience permit us to

characterize objects with the help of specific qualities: these are elements (such as sounds, colors, etc.) that are of interest to natural science, and to psychology also to the extent of their dependence upon the individual and his central nervous system. But psychology is wrong to conceive of a "psychic" element opposed to "what lies on the other side." Unless deformed by psychological prejudice, experience does not differentiate between matter and spirit, the thing and its "inner" copy, the traces it leaves.

It would, however, be erroneous to assume-according to Avenarins-that doing away with the introjective faUacy does away with the distinction between self-cognitive and noncognitive components of the environment. For when I say that I know this or that, I am saying that my "self" is a collection of things and thoughts, and that this collection has been increased by the action of a stimulus, whereas the non-cognitive component is not increased in the same situation, cannot (that is) be regarded as a "central part" of the essential co-ordination in which this stimnlus is the counterpart. But the statement that the "self" differs from the inanimate components of the environment "by the cognition within it" is meaningless, for we do not know of any "non-cognition" in these inanimate components, and the "self" is nothing more or less than one component of experience. The psychical is not a substance localized in the brain, neither a function nor a state of the brain: it is a mode of describing experience.

The question arises, How can we conceive of an environment wit~out a "central part"? For instance, what meaning can be ascnbed t~ events that .are not directly observable? According to A venanus,natural sCience does not ask questions concerning

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY I I 3

the environment "in itself," but describes an environment assuming an observer acting as a "central pa.rt." It treats an actnal environment as the "counterpart" to a non-observable (theoretical) situation. In other words, A venarius denies that the idea of essential co-ordination reduces or changes the actnal meaning of scientific descriptions referring to unobservable situations.

Thus, the ultimate aim of Avenarius's critique of introjection is to do away with the dualism of subject and object by reducing both to experience, assumed a.s the primordial category. Whether the subject is reduced to a certain kind of thing or thing to subject, the result is the same: the breaking up of subjectivity and identification of the "self" with the other forms of experience. Thus it may be said that Avenarius's "subjectivism" (if this tenn is not too unfair) does not reconstruct reality by referring it to the subject, but destroys the reality of the subject itself-which, incidentally, is in keeping with the positivist tradition. Adversaries of empiriocriticistn pointed out that by taking "experience" as his basic, metaphysically and epistemologically neutral category, Avenarius did not eliminate dualism: rather, he unwittingly interpreted it now in a realistic, and now in a psychological sense. But Avenarius himself held that every interpretation of this kind is metaphysical and has no place in science. He assumed that our natural, prescientific view of experience is sufficiently clear, and that we do not spontaneously regard it as a product of the self nor as an "inner reflection" of transcendent beings. Avenarius's fundamental intention is transparent: he wants to do away, not just with metaphysical, but also with epistemological questions. His critique of experience is purely destrnctive, and the philosophy he advocates is neither a theory of knowledge nor a theory of being, but is confined to analyzing the actual results of science and subsuming them under the most general categories. The purpose of his "purifying" undertaking is to eliminate metaphysical prejudices and to blaze the trail for a pragmaticminded science.


Apart from a certain vagueness surrounding Avenarius's concept of experience, his whole project is grounded in an even more general concept. This is the so-called "principle of economy," which among other things serves to justify the attempt to reconstruct the world of experience and to purge it of "introjective" notions.

5. The principle of economy. What figures under this name in textbooks on the history of philosophy can be reduced to a few logically independent statements in which it is possible to discern a common intention. One early, well-known version of the principle of economy is "Ockham's razor": "Entities are not to be multiplied unnecessarily." This comes down to the empiricist principle: we are entitled to assert the existence only of those things and properties that experience compels us to recognize, and we must renounce all others. This version is not an ontological statement, but a methodological rule.

There are several fonnulations as well of ontological or descriptive versions of this principle. There is a theological version, formulated by Malebranche and others, according to

which God in administering the world always uses the simplest means to His ends: that is, He does not waste natural resources when the same result can be obtained at less cost. The same principle was formulated by Maupertnis in purely physicist terms: every effect in natnre is achieved with the least possible expense of the energy required to pass from a given initial state to another state. A somewhat narrower formulation (however, it is not necessary that the principle be stated in its full generality) is the biological version stated by Spencer, among others. According to this, the acts of living organisms are executed with minimal loss of energy, and since the hnman brain serves the system's self-preserving functions, thinking is snbject to the Same law. In this form, the principle of economy can be applied to intellectual behavior, and provides the biological foundation for epistemological inferences-assuming that such inferences can be based on observation of nature.

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY lIS

As understood by Avenarius, Mach, and related writers, the principle of economy is not a physical law with an ontological meaning, but a description of the behavior of the central nervous system, which accounts for the actual course of scientific thinking, the history of human knowledge in general, the history of science in particular. The gradual accumulation of knowledge 3 can be described in terms of the mind's tendency to economize. Scientific concepts, laws, hypotheses, theories-all are a kind of shorthand that economizes intellectual labor, thanks to which acquired experience can be remembered and handed down. The only task of science is to relieve people of the need to experiment continuously, by malting accessible to them the experiences of others. No general scientific statements reproduce particnlar facts in their entirety; they cover only some of their characteristics-the ones important to man for biological reasons. They economize effort; they make it possible to take in at a glance a multitude of particular events, viewing them from a vitally important angle. Science is experience economically ordered, and its real content does not go beyond experience. Concepts such as those of "substance," "thing," etc. are similarly products of the mind's tendency to economize: in the totality of experience we distinguish certain qualities as more permanent than others and synthesize these as some one "thing," gradually separating it out from the original qualities so that in time it becomes an unchanging "substratum." Language arrests this cognitive process, and so unproductive metaphysical ideas arise. In actual fact the concept "thing" is useful, since it fixes in abridged form certain recurrent characteristics manifested in series of successive experiences; there is no reason to renounce traditional modes of speech, yet we have to free words of the metaphysical meanings ascribed to them, which are not justified by any real need of the cognitive organism. The same is true of the concept of "force," which is used to denote characteristics of varions physical reactions. The concept is useful as a shorthand notation of a certain quality recurrent in many experiences,

lI6 THE ALIENATION OF REASON

but we must guard against associating it with any metaphysical idea.

Proper understanding of the principle of economy will enable us to turn our backs on many metapbysical problems, and the totality of human cognition-its processes and its contents-will be accounted for as genetically and functionally related to biological needs that are satisfied with the help of our brains. Biologically speaking, the central nervous system operates purposefully. Two factors cooperate in the production of ideas: apperceptive masses (the expression is Herbart's), i.e., ready-tohand, fixed residues of old apperceptions, which perform assimilatory functions, and elements newly apperceived. The former have an active character: from among the experienced contents they pick out known components and needed components (and hence they operate in accordance with the principle of economy). From among the passive contents of experience, the apperceptive masses appropriate new, unknown elements by associating them with the known ones. The apperceived components are less well defined than the Contents of the apperceptive masses, and the cognitive process consists in this, that the brain endows the appropriated contents with definition, choosing from among them with the help of familiar ideas. The neural mechanism nnderlying the activity of the apperceptive masses accounts for the presence of permanent rigid notions in our image of the world. It also casts light on the functions of language: language is composed of signs intended to economize the assimilatory effort. Every intellectual operation presupposes the presence of a mass of ready-made concepts under which we continually subsume experienced contents with the help of the simplest, most general available ideas. In reference to this mechanism, the principle of economy can be formulated as follows: when new elements make their appearance in experience, the change that consciousness undergoes in the process of assimilating them is the least possible in the given sitnation.

When we consider the history of science from this viewpoint,

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

we observe that science gradually eliminates those components that are not present in pure experience and that are superfluous for the effective assimilation of data. Among such dispensable components are values, anthropomorphic notions, the metaphysical concepts of substance and cause, "universals j " etc.

As can readily be seen, the principle of economy tells us nothing about the truth of science in the common sense of the term, merely describes the biological law governing the assimilation of cognitive contents. Although it stresses the objectivity of notions, this objectivity consists in their applicability to individual elements of experience, and thus has a purely operational, not a metaphysical sense. The principle of economy is the only possible criterion for determining the validity of concepts.

The empirical version of this principle aroused much criticism, of the kind that has always greeted relativistic or skeptical doctrines. TIns principle, it was said, involves the paralogism of "the liar" (it must be applied to itself, since it covers the totality of human thinking; consequently it cannot" be represented as true in the traditional sense, but at best as the result of the very mechanism it describes). It was also objected to on the ground that it renders impossible the distinction between facts and theories (or scientific fictions), for within experience snch fictions are just as "given" and real as other facts, and the facts themselves have been picked out hy the apperceptive masses. Consequently, it is impossible on the hasis of the principle of economy to distinguish between authentic and fictitious elements of experience. After A venarius, Poincare, Duhem, Le Roy, and others analyzed the concept of fact in greater detail.

Empiriocriticism, and especially the principle of economy, Was supposed to avoid the difficulties involved in Kant's critical problem. But its adversaries objected that the undertaking was futile. In the empiriocritical image of the world, the principle of economy and the concept of pure experience presuppose one another; the principle can he formulated only once we have determined the concept of pure experience as a constant system

IIS THE ALIENATION OF REASON

of reference (in order to know what cognitive elements are to be eliminated as incompatible with the economy of thought, we must have a model for the reduction of the "given"). On the other hand, we arrive at the concept of pure experience by making use of the same principle of economy. Thus, in the last analysis, we get a new version of the same circular reasoning that is the starting point of Kant's critical problem: the standards by which knowledge is evaluated are justified by a model of cognition in the construction of which the same standards are used. According to Husserl, who criticized the principle of economy in his Logische Untersuchungen, no theory of knowledge that makes use of the results of experimental science can withstand criticism, for it is impossible to inquire into the validity or non-validity of knowledge if we presuppose the validity of specific results achieved witb the help of the very criteria that are in question.

6. Ernst Mach. In his writings, Ernst Mach (1838-1916) formulated many ideas similar to those of Avenarius, but independently of him. Unlike the latter, he was a practicing scientist, an experimental and theoretical physicist. He taught mathematics and physics at Vienna, Graz, and Prague, and in the last years of his academic career lectured on philosophy at Viennamore accurately, on the history and theory of the inductive sciences. Pondering the need for over-all views in connection ",;th new branches of physics arising in his day, he was led to historical study in the hope that learning how the basic concepts of physics were arrived at would cast light on their true meaning and supply clues to the direction further work should take. For this reason, he devoted a great deal of attention to the history of physics.

It is perhaps because of his historical interests that Mach, though related in many respects to Avenarius, had a much stronger sense of the relativism of knowledge than the latter. Avenarins, it wonld seem, was firmly convinced that as science progressed experience was continuously "purified," and that


it was possible to come ever closer to the ideal of an allembracing synthesis within a radically purified experience. He was far more sy~;tem-minded than Mach and far more inclined to traditional philosophizing, although he interpreted the meaning of science in purely biological terms. Mach, on the other hand, was deeply convinced of the provisional character of every given stage of science and of all scientific assertions. An impOl·tant part in his philosophical reflection was played by his radical anti-dogmatism, his conviction of the harm caused to science and to life in general by stubborn .adherence to inherited formulas. He did not believe that any sort of opinion is above criticism, and thought that physics itself stood especially in need of a thorough housecleaning.

In his early youth Mach had read Kant's Prolegomena and it made a great impression on him, stimulating him to reflect critically on current metaphysical prejudices. In his mature writings, however, he completely rejected the fundamental ideas of Kantianism. He reached the conclusion that "the thing in itself" is a completely superfluous hypothesis, and that there is no foundation for believing in any a priori conditions of experience whatever; he found assertion of the existence of synthetic a priori judgments especially absurd. According to him, the history of science shows incontrovertibly that there is no clear-cut boundary between prescientific everyday experience set down in ordinary language, and the theoretical constructions of modern science. Science is a continuation of the same shorthand, symbolic systemarizing of experience that people have pursued spontaneously tlu'oughout history. Cognition is a specific part of human practical activity, an organic response or a process of adaptation to the environment, and there is no reason to ascribe transcendental meaning to it. Thus, like Avenarius, Mach sought to do away with metaphysical notions by constructing a leading epistemological category (experience) of a kind that does not inquire into the "existential" status of experienced


reality. He is also related to A venarius by his biological and methodological conception of the principle of economy.

If we reflect-having discarded all metaphysical assumptions -on the real content of what is given in cognition, we find, according to Mach, certain complexes of qualities that may be called "elements." The question whether these elements are "in themselves" physical or psychical is meaningless. Physicality or psychicality is not a characteristic of any component of experience, but a specific mode of the cognitive organization. Neutral "in themselves," these elements (color, sound, space, time-in short, all the traditional primary and secondary qualities) are called "things" to the extent that we link them together in more or less permanent combinations and study the laws of their simultaneons occurrence, as natural science does. The same elements are called "impressions" to the extent that we refer them to the body that perceives them. Either interpretation is secondary in relation to the presence of the elements in experience, and the rule governing interpretation is precisely the principle of economy, this nnconsciously purposive regulator of the organism's self-preserving activities.

Scientific laws and theories do not add anything to cxperience not contained in it in the first place; their role consists in selection and symbolization; they do not have to reproduce an absolute world, but to select from it the biologically important components and order them, so as to enable us to predict them and to forestall their dangerous effects or to exploit their biologically useful qualities. Indispensable in this ordering activity is the discovery and recording of certain recurrent combinations of elements we call "things." When we mentally separate a relatively permanent body from its changing environment, we are merely trying to fix in our memories the differences the various elements display on the score of their variability or invariability-a characteristic of the utmost practical importance. One incidental effect of this activity is the illusion that once we have subtracted all the qualities there


remains some indefinite substratum or "thing in itself." In reality, from a purely empirical viewpoint, bodies are mental symbols that stand for more or less permanent combinations of elements. This also applies to such phenomena as space, time, and causality. Apart from observations concerning the permanence of certain connections, the metaphysical concept of canse is of no use to us. Time is an independent variable which by its values characterizes certain relations between phenomena and, no more than causality, requires that we ascribe to it any ontological reality. Similarly, Mach thought-this inspired a violent attack by Planck-that atoms and other particles have only symbolic reality. He treated the concept of individuality or self in the same way: individuality is a symbol around which we group certain specific qualities, and to this extent it is iustrumentaUy useful.

There is no such thing as a knowledge telling us something ahout the world that does not originate in experience and have an experiential content. Mach regarded it especially important that we should grasp this. Geometry, insofar as it applies to experience, is an experimental science in the same sense as mechanics: it describes spatial relations between things in a shortened, hence idealized form. Non-experimental mathematical propositions have a tautological character-they are not synthetic a priori judgments-and they do not refer to things, but formulate rules of reasoning. All our statements about the world, both records of individual observations and so-called principles, laws, theories-all are subject to the control of experience, and tbanks to the possibility of such control, perform the vital functions assigned them by the human species. Science is a specifically human mode of biological behavior, a means of effective communication that is not provided by experience alone, although the real content of knowledge never goes beyond experience.

Mach acknowledges having been influeuced by Darwin's work, which was published just as he was ending his uuiversity


studies. It persuaded him to view the evolution of science as a particular case in the over-all biological process of adaptation. "Expressed in the most concise terms, the task of scientific cognition consists in adapting thoughts to facts and thoughts to

one another. Every beneficial biological process furthers selfpreservation, and hence is a process of adaptation. . . . For the physical, biological behavior of living beings is co-determined, and supplemented, by the inner process of cognition: thinking."

This interpretation also gets rid of the distinction between scientific "description" and scientific ((explanation.)) Once we have described a given system as exhaustively and economically as possible, there is nothing left to be "explained." Moreover, according to Mach, the distinction is itself harmful and results in waste of scientific energies, for it leads to constructing unnecessary hypotheses devoid of empirical meaning, and enconrages the ridiculous pretension that a universally and eternally valid science can be created.

Thus, apart from a short period when he subscribed to

Kant's point of view and sympathized with Berkeley, as he tells us himself, Mach arrived at "a natural view of tbe world, without speculative metaphysical ingredients. The dislike of metaphysics implanted in me by Kant, and the analyses carried out by Herbart and Fechner led me to a point of view close to Hume's."

According to Mach, this natural view of the world contains no difficulties and entails no paradoxical conseqnences. It permits and even necessitates recognizing a world of experience common to all men, and thus a physical experience distinct from the psychical world accessible only to each human individual separately. Nor is there any reason not to recognize the existence of other minds; we are forced to do so by irrefutable analogies between other individuals' behavior and our own. "The material world rests upon established counections between elements, and relations between humau impressions are only a particnlar instance of such connections."

This view fully satisfies the reqnirements of its own leading

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 12 3

rule, namely, the principle of economy. Once the metaphysical and epistemological questions that vitiate not only "pure philosophy" but also physics have been weeded out, mankind's intellectual energies will be concentrated on their real ueeds, which it is science's task to satisfy.

Science is not a collection of individual facts, gathered and added to in view of making "generalizations." Science normally progresses through the discovery of facts that of themselves disclose the law governing them through direct experiment. One case of this is the way color varies with the angle of refraction of light. Elementary activities of the same type as are fonnd in science make their appearance at an animal level: animals' conditioned reflexes are rudimentary concepts, the latter term beiug tal{en in an operational, uot a philosophic sense. Science operates with a similar store of "preconceptions," i.e., ready-made relationships that have been discovered experimentally and recorded in the conceptual system. The operational values of the individual components of this system are subject to constant revision in order to determine to what extent our expectations based on this system are or are not fulfilled. In this respect, there is no difference between ordinary experience accessible to any being endowed with a nervous system and scientifically organized experiment. There is no break in continuity between science and spoutaueous everyday experience, nor even between science and modes of behavior characteristic of the entire animal world. Progress here consists primarily in greater differentiating ability and greater richness in the qualities observed in the world, some of which are useful, others harmfnl. Any assumption that the human conceptual system coutains something more than the sense experiences from which it derives is completely unfounded: it is merely more effectively organized. Human speech is the earliest basic mode of organizing experience, for it enables us to hand down individual achievements to posterity and fix them in the collective memory. Science is a continuation of the process that prodnced language, by means


of which the human species, in contradistinction to the lower species, accumulates and preserves empirically acquired knowledge.

Like most positivists, Mach did not look upon himself as either a philosopher or a positivist. If, in addition to his experimental research in physics and the physiology of the senses (his researches are regarded as especially valuable in the fields of optics, acoustics, wave theory, and the theory of auditory and kinesthetic impressions), he concemed himself with hi~torical

questions, this was because he hoped to discover the biological sense of scientific pursuits and to rid himself of "metaphysical ghosts." At a time when official German philosophy was almost exclusively dominated by different versions of Kantianism, Mach expected his doctrine to perform primarily destructive tasks.

This is why, although according to Mach meaningful statements cau be made only within the limits set by scient}fic experience, theory also performs (and was intended by him to perform) the functions of a philosophical view of the world. In a treatise devoted to Mach's doctrine, Richard von Mises says that it marked the second stage in "emancipation as well as humanization" (Hume marked the first), for it re~;tored purely practical meaning to human knowledge, did away with the alleged authority of a transcendental world of truth, and made man the actual creator of the intellectual system that apprehends his natural environment. It was a doctrine that ruthlessly weeded out all mythical and religious representations from the world picture. It also shook up a certain "melancholy of dishelief" popular at the time, thanks to the writings of Du Bois-Reymond, among others. According to them the "essence" of space, time, conscionsness, causality, also the connection between sensory impressions and states of matter, will be forever inaccessible to man. In Mach's view, this ignorabimus derives solely from falsely formulated questions; once the primacy of experience has been recognized, it will be clear that concepts such as

POSITIVISM AT TIlE TURN OF THE CENTURY 125

material particles, the "self," and causality have purely experimental meaning, and that there is no reason to look for some deeper reality underlying our conceptual constructs.

Mach and his adherents deny that the reduction of human personality or "self" to a symbolic abstraction created soleiy for practical purposes entails dangerous moral consequences ("There is no saving the 'I,'" Mach wrote) by ignoring the ethical value of individual life. On the contrary, they argued, this doctrine prevents liS from oVereStl111ating our own "self" and despising others, furthers a conception of mankiud as one co-operating, interdependent whole, ends the idle diversion of human energies from the struggle for self -preservation, and does away with intellectual fetishism.

7· Arguments against empmocrltzcmn. Mach's theories aroused a great deal of criticism from different quarters. Apart from the antinomy implied when the principle of economy is regarded as the main rule of cognition-the antinomy already referred to-critics often pointed out that Mach's assumption of primary "elements" is no less arhitrary than the contrary assnmption. Mach's seemingly primary components may be regarded as results of analysis, just as well as records of spontaneous everyday perceptions that require no further assumptions. Husserl attached particular importance to the skeptical consequences of empiriocriticism: renunciation of "truth" in the sense this term has had throughout the history of European culture, reduction of knowledge to a specific type of biological reaction. These consequences, which Husserl regarded as disastrous because they were destructive of all the values upon which this culture is hased (the presence in cognitive contents of a "truth" independent of man, the absoluteness of the fundamental rules of moral evaluation), are arrived at by unsound reasoning. For empiriocriticists analyze the cognitive process with the help of experimental psychology and empirical studies of history, and then ascribe "objective" meaning to their results in order to prove that no knowledge can pretend to any


objective meaning so understood. The empiriocriticists' assumption that they make no philosophical presuppositions is therefore erroneous, and a theory of knowledge hased on uncritical acceptance of the results of empirical knowledge cannot avoid the vicious circle. Only a provisional renunciation of the resnlts of empiricism and of the findings of particular fields of knowledge will enable us to discover the ultimate sources from which derive science's claims to "truth." Empirical methods alone can never lead to a theory of knowledge.

Another disquieting consequence of empiriocriticism was its denial of real being to personality. Empiriocritical subjectivism broke up the subject into elements of just the same kind as things are constructed ant of, while at the same time it discarded the question of how the "external" qnalities of things are correlated with the contents of perception. This was one of the reasons why Bergson opposed this kind of positivism.

To be sure, the radical monism toward which empiriocriticist thought tended did not consist in reducing the world to a part of the psychological subject; rather, the subject was what it did away with. However, the doctrine owed its coherence to a peculiar way of homogenizing the world, based on a conception of experience that involved considerably greater difficulties than idealism. The assumption of absolutely primary elements of experience, neutral in relation to the dichotomy between "psychicality" and "physicality" seemed to many critics arbitrary and nnprovable, and not a bit less obscure for being referred to as "primary." Many critics thought that the dichotomy "transcendent/immanent" could not be avoided, and hence interpreted Mach and Avenarius as partisans of immanence-an interpretation Avenarius strongly protested. At bottom the empiriocriticists wanted to do away with the traditional epistemological problem, whiCh, in their view, was falsely formulated, and to go back to the cognitive situation they regarded as "natural." However, in order to achieve their aim, they resorted to arguments that presupposed a far from self-evident category of experience.


According to their critics, an "experience" reduced to atom-like constituent parts is even more abstract a construction than "bodies," "space," and "causes" were to Mach. As is customary with attempts to discover the ultimate, indivisible, "given" elements of knowledge, the final result was unconvincing, since its methods involved the use of non-definitive or unanalyzed data of experience.

In connection with the question whether empiriocriticism should be interpreted in psychological or immanentist terms, we must take cognizance of the criticisms Lenin voiced in his Materialism and Empiriocriticism, published in 1909. This book is a violent attack on the Russian adherents of this philosophy and their Western sources. Especially after the failure of the 1905 revolution, empiriocriticism enjoyed considerable popularity among the Leftist intelligentsia in Russia, particularly among the Social Democrats. A number of members of the party's Bolshevik wing were drawn to the doctrine, the most prominent of these being A. A. Bogdanov. According to its Russian adherents, empiriocriticism was perfectly consistent with the revolutionary spirit of Social Democracy and its political radicalism, for it stripped our view of the world of mythical ideas, prescientific and pseudoscieutific notions, and so paved the way for a strictly scientific view of the world, purged of the idle verbalism of old metaphysical systems. Moreover, as we may judge from Valentinov's memoirs (he was an active member of the Russian empiriocriticist movement), the very subjectivism of this philosophy attracted the revolutionaries, who imagined it to be a sort of philosophical counterpart to their political doctrine of social upheaval planned and brought about by the party. Plekhanov's writings at the time stressed the fact that a revolution cannot be successful unless the economic and historical conditions are ripe for it (the proletariat cannot seize power before capitalism has reached a certain stage of development). Together with Trotsky, he accused Lenin of "Blanquism," belief in an arbitrary, "conspiratorial" attempt to speed up


social development. At the time, he saw a connection between the Bolsheviks' political position and the popularity of this philosophy among them. The Russian followers of Mach were unaware of any incompatibility between their own position and Marxism; they pointed to the Theses on Feuerbach, which they interpreted in a subjectivist spirit.

Lenin, however, launched a sharp attack 011 ernpiriocriticlsm, citing the philosophy expounded in such writings of Engels as were then known. His work is a defense of the materialist position, and in it he regarded empiriocriticism as a subterfuge in which lurks a content identical with Berkeleyan idealism. According to him, a philosophy that assumes experience to be neutral in relation to the dichotomy between physicality and psychicality is nntenable; Mach, Avenarius, and related thinkers merely reduce the experienced world to the snbject's psychical contents or treat it as a necessary correlate to consciousness. This position implies that all reality is a subjective creation, and hence cannot avoid falling into solipsism; among other things, it must renounce the concept of truth in the sense of conformity between cognitive contents and a physical world independent of them. Lenin opposed to this doctrine a materialist and realist doctrine that he called "the theory of reflection." According to this theory, what is given in experience is a world of bodies independent of our perception of them, which is copied by the mind in the cognitive process. Our impressions are photographs of physical objects, so to speak, which themselves constimte the only existing reality. Consequently "truth" denotes exact conformity of cognitive contents with a world independent of man, and this applies equally to propositions, impressions, and concepts-the latter, too, are "reflections" of the real world. The process of cognition is never completed, and hence the trnth of our knowledge is always relative. But this relativity of truth does not imply that a statement is true only in reference to a given stage of knowledge, to a given historical formation, let alone to a given human in-


dividual. It means only that scientific statements are never so exact as to rule out the possibility of being rectified. Moreover, experimental control is never absolutely perfect, and hence there is no such thing as a judgment that has been verified once and for all. According to Lenin, the results of science provide us with irrefutable arguments against Mach's idealist view of these matters. The fact that man is a product of namre and makes his appearance at a given stage of biological evolution is sufficient evidence that at one time there was a reality without man; whereas the idealists maintain that the physical world is a creation of the thinking self, and are thus barred from accepting reliable scientific information. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that thinking is a function of the brain, i.e., of a material ohject, and this is again something an empiriocriticist cannot admit, since he treats physical objects as prodncts of thinking.

Lenin agrees that there is no difference between the phenomenon and the Kantian thing-in-itself, but according to him this does not imply that the phenomenal world understood as a complex of impressions is the only accessible one; it implies only that there is nothing absolutely unknowable. There is a difference between something that is known and something yet nnknown; nor can it be doubted that some of reality remains to be known. Our cognitions do not form a wall behind which we can only guess at the presence of things, but are reflections of real things in human heads. All these assertions can be justified by appeal to the criterion of practice, which is the most effective means for testing the truth or falsity of our ideas. Whenever an action carried out on the basis of given information mrns out to be successful, the information is sufficiently confirmed; failure points to an error in our information. The last-mentioned criterion is particularly important in social practice: whether an analysis of a given social situation is correct is tested by the effectiveness of political action carried out on the basis of it. What is meant here is not that the nseful-


ness of a given belief makes it true, but that a judgment that reflects a factual state of affairs can be verified by practical actions affectiug this state of affairs, namely, by ascertaining whetber these actions had the results expected.

Lenin also uncompromisingly criticized his adversaries for accepting empiriocritical interpretations of the most important philosophic categories. Among other things, he defended the concept of cansality on the grounds that it describes actual necessary connections between events, and that it cannot be reduced to a purely empirical functional relation. He also defended Engels' view of the cognitive functions of time and space: though they do exist independently of bodies, they are not subjective creations or a priori forms, as Kant maintained, but resnlts of empirical operations that organize phenomena into certain types of relationship; they are objective properties of material bodies.

At the same time, Lenin argued that the idealistic position of his adversaries entails acceptance of religious belief, and that the real intention of all idealists is the defense of religion, as shown by Berkeley's example. Tbis was one of the reasons why Lenin strongly emphasized a rule he called "the party principle in pbilosophy." It denotes, first, that in pbilosophy it is impossible to avoid choosing between idealism and materialism, and that anyone who thinks philosopbically must opt for one or the other of these two positions. Every attempt to rise above this fundamental conflict or to avoid it is but an underhanded defense of idealism. Second, it denotes that pbilosophical doctrines are always tools used by political parties or institutions, and that, regardless of expressed intentions, a philosophical commitment is always a political commitment as well. Since idealism is always invoked to uphold religious belief, it is inevitably in the service of the exploiting classes, while materialism, at least in our time, is the pbilosophy of the militant proletariat. As against certain Russian empiriocriticists, Lenin denied that a political position aiming primarily at efficient

POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 13 1

organization of party energies in preparation for the revolution (rather than waiting for economic conditions to be "right") is necessarily associated with a subjectivist philosophy.

Lenin's book played an important part in the subsequent history of Marxism, particularly after Stalin summed up its main ideas in a popular article titled "On Dialectical and Historical Materialism," which for several years was obligatory reading in all Soviet schools.

When we look back over the leading empiriocritical idcas, we are especially struck by the following features: (I) the pbilosophical destruction of the subject; (2) the biological and practical conception of cognitive functions, reduction of intellectual behavior to purely organic needs, and renunciation of "truth" in the transcendental sense; (3) desire to get back to the most primitive concrete datum, to a "natural" view of the world not mediated by metaphysical fictions. The last-mentioned point is characteristic of various tendencies that manifested themselves in European philosophy at the turn of the century. We find this same desire in Husser!, also in Bergson, although the latter's way of structuring and articulating it is very different from the former's. According to Husser!, what somehow cuts off human consciousness from direct contact with things is nothing else but pragmatic, technologically oriented knowledge, that is, a knowledge organized for utilitarian purposes rather than for understanding the world, grasping the correspondence between our classifications and the essence of things. Similarly, according to Bergson, practical intelligence active in everyday life and in empirical science re-creates the world according to the practical needs of the species and so, by its very nature, cannot go beyond tbis attitude; it employs ready-made instruments to break up the world into artificial but convenient abstract fictions, taking only a selection of phenomena into account and ignoring the rest, and thus inevitably fails to grasp change and living time (fa duree). In order to rediscover the

THE ALIEN AnON OF REASON

concrete, we have to overcome this practical, analytic view and communicate directly with the object. In this way, as snbjects, we identify onrse!ves with the object, and are thereby enabled to assimilate its spontaneons but inexpressible movement.

However, we repeat, in all these attempts to get back to a "natural" view of the world, the very desire to do so makes impossible any definitive, lasting construction of the individnal hnman subject. In the case of Husser!, this is because his empirical ego has to be included in the transcendental act of reduction, and the cognitive acts within the reduced area, though we can always distinguish the act of cognition from its content, no longer presuppose the existence of real personality, only the transcendental ego that is no more than a storehouse of purified thought contents. In the case of Bergson, the empirical ego is seemingly secured thanks to the distinction between the deep self and the purely cerebral fnnctions, yet is it dissolved the moment it becomes clear that it is always a kind of participation in the universal "psychicality" of the world. On closer scrutiny, the boundaries of individuality become just as blurred as are the individual houndaries of physically interacting things. If the physical object turns out, when analyzed more carefully, to be a construct cut out from the infinite concrete universe, we must infer that the psychical subject, too, can in the last analysis be reconstructed only by cognitive operations that particul~rize the world, since the hidden evolutional cosmic impulse constitutes an indivisible whole, just as does the universe of bodies within the scientist's field of vision.

Al! these doctrines, moreover, share the conviction that the world organized by science-regardless of just how the delimiting boundaries are drawn up-is the result of creative human energy, and hence that man is in a way responsible for the "thing" his scientific thought constrncts. This conviction was to become the fundamental fearure of our own century's thought and has exerted a long-lasting influence in the most various quarters.


These two factors-return to a "natural" attitude, and recognition of it as an organizing activity-justify treating this whole period of philosophy as a relatively homogeneous development with points of contact in literary trends and world outlooks over the same years. Though empiriocriticism reproduces the main positivist ideas, often more radically, the sense it gave them was adapted to the distinctive style of the age.

CHAPTER SIX

Conventionalism-Destruction of the

Concept of Fact

L The leading idea of conventionalism. ViThat is called conventionalism is not a distinct "school" of thought. The term denotes a view of scientific method and the truth of scientific (primarily physical) propositions, It shows affinities with empiriocriticism, but certain French physicists and mathematicians arrived at it independently, (According to some writers, Henri Poincare is erroneously regarded in France as the creator of "scientific philosophy"; they point out that Mach formulated his ideas before Poincare, and did so more effectively and consistently,) The conventionalist viewpoint also has its counterparts in the social sciences, but historically the term is reserved for the methodology of natural science, Conventionalism is characterized by the problems it deals with rather than by a specific philosophical doctrine,

The fundamental idea of conventionalism may be stated as follows: Certain scientific propositions, erroneously taken for descriptious of the world based on the recording and generalization of experiments, are in fact artificial creations, and we regard them as true not because we are compelled to do so for empirical reasons, but because they are convenient, useful, or even because they have aesthetic appeaL Conventionalists agree with empiricists concerning the origin of knowledge, but reject their empirical criterion of truth, Or, to pnt the same point somewhat more accurately, the data of experience always leave

scope for more than one explanatory hypothesis, and which one

CONVENTIONALISM 135

is to be cbosen cannot be determined by experience, Rival hypotheses. acconnting for a given aggregate of facts may be equally sound from a logical point of view, and hence our actual choices are accounted for by non-empirical circumstances.

In this sense our image of the world has a conventional character. Some have pointed out that it is conventional in still anotber sense, namely, most of the propositions of physics are analytic, and so give us a sort of verbal legislation in the guise of descriptions of observed facts, Verbal convention plays quite a considerable part in the scientific view of the world, whether out of aesthetic considerations or considerations of economy: the conception of science as descriptive "generalization" from "brute" facts, as a one-way movement of thought from "facts" to "laws" is naive and superficial.

The leading names of French conventionalism incJnde the famous mathematician and theoretical physicist Henri Poincare (1854-1912), the eminent historian of science Pierre Duhem (1861-1916), and the philosopher and religious writer Edouard Le Roy (187G-1954), Le Roy is also known as a popularizer of Bergson's philosophy and as an active member of the modernist movement in French Catholic thought, Similarly radical conventionalist ideas were advanced a little later by the German methodologist Hugo Dingler (1881-1954) and the prominent Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890-1963),

The French conventionalists were less concerned with formulating a scientistic philosophy than with problems posed by the advance of physics, which involved the meaning of physical propositions-problems Einstein solved with his theory of relativity. (Einstein said that he owed the key conception in his special theory of relativity to Ernst Mach,) Their aim waS not primarily to do away with metaphysics, but to define the epistemological boundary separating it from science, They did this by ascribing a conventional meaning to scientific propositions, Although this doctrine is not, strictly speaking, a variety of


posltlvism, it cannot be omitted from our survey because it strongly influenced the subsequent development of posItIVIsm.

2. The impossibility of proving or disproving hypotheses. An important point in conventionalist theories is their criticism of the concept of "fact" as a possible confirmation of a "scientific law." The conventionalists deny that there is any such thing as "pure experience," i.e., facts that do not involve theoretical presuppositions, but are recorded directly "from nature," so to speak. The validity of certain scientific laws is presupposed in the very functioning of scientific instrnments and in the way we read them. Dnhem and Le Roy illustrate this with numerous examples. For instance, the law of the reflection of light is studied with the help of flat mirrors, the construction of which presupposes the validity of the law. When we read a thermometer we are assuming in advance that bodies expand uniformly under the action of heat, for this assnmption is built into the thermometer; yet to ascertain the uniformity of thermic expansion we use a thermometer. When we look at an object through a magnifying lens, we see only certain portions of it, disregarding the others (e.g., the fringes of colored bands caused by diffraction), and this is to presuppose the validity of certain laws of optics. Even the simplest device implies the existence of certain laws so that any "fact" ascertained with its help cannot be considered as "given" apart from those laws. Thus the scientific principle of verification does not just work from laws to facts, bnt also the other way round: there are no "original facts," "fundamental propositions," or similar constructs, for every description of a fact involves one or another prior theoretical assumption.

It follows from the foregoing that the experimentum crucis is impossible in science, that is, no experimental situation is possible which can convincingly single out one hypothesis as superior to another. For to disprove any hypothesis we must use instruments which always presuppose one or more laws, and these laws are just as much involved in the disproving procedure

CO)'.'VENTIONALISM 137

as the hypothesis in question. Consequently we do not know which of the logically possible statements we have disprovedthose actually tested or those presupposed in the construction of the instruments used. Thus there is no such thing as induction in the U'aditional sense. The choices made in snch cases are not based on experience but determined by considerations of coherence, convenience, etc. The theory of physics is a purely man-made construction; when we disprove a hypothesis we are merely choosing one out of a number of possible assertions, the one we regard, purely by convention, as affected by the negative resnlt of the experiment.

Since hypotheses are verified by other hypotheses, not by appeal to the original brute facts, there always exists a number of possible and mutually contradictory theoretical systems, any one of which accounts as well as another for the totality of experience. One example of such a possibility-it was not adduced by a conventionalist-is the hypothesis that all of us live on the interior surface of a sphere, and that the heavenly bodies are at its center; this theory allegedly accounts for all known observations once we assume a different curvature of light beams.

According to Le Roy, we can distinguish brute facts from scieotific facts, but only in the sense that the former or rather the descriptions of them merely supply a record of purely subjective perception, are inU'ospective, and devoid of scientific value. A scientific fact is a convention, a shorthand record of a process observed, making use of non-empirical categories. For instance, we say, "the current rnns through the wire." But sensory e"'Perience discloses no flowing of the current. All that we actually observe are such phenomena as shifts of the galvanometer needle, rising temperature in the wire, flashing bulbs, magnetization of metals. We describe all these phenomena by the term "current,') i.e., reduce them to a single, economical, descriptive form. The expression "the current runs" is no more than a summing up of the given phenomena, a convenient


linguistic tool, not the description of an actual process. (It must be noted that these arguments date from a period when the reality of the atom had been pnt in qnestion.)

Duhem, meanwhile, drew a distinction between practical facts -findings based on measurements-and theoretical facts, i.e., the recording of such findings for scientific purposes. Now, a thermometer, for example, like other measuring insu-uments, is accnrate only within certain limits. A given temperature always admits of an infinite number of approximations; in other words, one and the same practical fact can be recorded by an infinite nnmber of formulas, which we choose among "conventionally." Improvements in our instruments of measnrement do not change this situation, for a possible margin of error is never overcome, only lessened. Even within a range of measurement as tiny as we may sncceed in making it, an infinity of interpretations remains possible.

Le Roy advanced an extreme view of the conventionality of scientific laws. According to him, the majority of these laws are definitions. The law governing the free fall of bodies is an analytic proposition: it merely defines the free fall. If we happened to observe a body falling at a different rate of acceleration than this law predicts, we would not change the law bnt say that what we observed was not a free fall. Similarly we do not really test the proposition that the diagonals of any square intersect at right angles. We merely do not call "squares" those figures in which the diagonals do not intersect at right angles. The law of the free fall merely defines the term "free fall." In the same way, the law of the conservation of mass is one definition of a closed system. Again, the proposition, "Phosphorus melts at the temperature C 44°"-a famous example-is not the account of any observation, but a definition or partial definition of phosphorus. A body similar to phosphorus in other respects, but which melted at a different temperature, we would not call "phosphorus." The alleged laws of science, then, are definitions, for they characterize certain states of a thing in

CONVENTIONALISM

such a way that the characterization is made a distinctive feature of that state. Experiment can neither prove nor disprove these propositions, for we can always dismiss an experiment disproviug them by saying that the object investigated does not fall under the conventionally accepted designation.

According to Poincare, the part played by conventions in science is also apparent from the circumstance that a refuted hypothesis can always be "saved" by supplying further hypotheses to account for the test that disproved the former as due to factors that modified the results expected. For instance, there are three methods for calculating the mass of Jupiter-the first is based on the motions of Jupiter's satellites, the second on disturbances observed in the motions of large planets, the third on disturbances in the motions of planetoids. Each method gives a somewhat different result. We conld conclude that there are different coefficients of gravitation; snch a "solution" is logically admissible but complicated and laborions. For this reason we assume the presence of slight errors in our measurements. Our motive for this assumption is our preference for simplicity.

Every law that establishes a functional dependency involves a fictitious element, Poincare goes on to say (Dingler also raised this point). When such a function is graphed, it appears as a certain number of points in a system of coordinates: we connect these points by a curve, assnming that it is a regular curve (though we have no real empirical justification for this) rather than a zigzag, that it is continuous rather than discontinuous, and that the points that do not fall into it are to he accounted for by errors in measnrement, which we proceed to rectify on the graph so as to obtain the desired result. To legitimate such a graph, we should have to carry out an infinite number of experiments, which is impossible, and so we arrive at the law by applying the criteria of simplicity, regularity, and aesthetic order.

Since the ultimate empirical sense of our hypotheses cannot go beyond the actual experimental data, it makes no difference,


whether from a logical or a physical point of view, which among the possible hypotheses accounting for a given class of facts we are to single out as the correct one. The Ptolemaic theory describes the motions of the planetary system just as correctly as the Copernican, but the latter is preferable because of its simplicity, and because it accounts for a number of facts for which the former does not account (e.g., the movements of a pendulum, the apparent movements of the stars, the trade winds, the flattened shape of the earth). That is, the Ptolemaic theory requires a greater number of hypotheses than the Copernican. Physical experience alone by no means obliges us to prefer Copernicus to Ptolemy. In other words, different hypotheses are, in a way, different langnages for describing the same facts-our choice between them purely a matter of convenience. Similarly, we can record the same temperature on the Fahrenheit or on the Celsius scale; the numerical values differ, but the meaning of the recording is identical. The same is true of any given collection of facts recorded by different and incompatible theories, because their empirical meaning comes down to the same facts.

In his reflections on geometry, Poincare devoted a great deal of attention to the structure of space, stressing the purely conventional character of the features we usually ascribe to it. There is no reason, of course, to look upon space as an entity independent of physical relations between bodies. Nor is space a characteristic of bodies in the sense we imagine; and, in spite of Kant's transcendental aesthetics, it is not an a priori form present in man's cognitive system before he experiences anything whatever. The concept of space has an empirical origin; but the homogeneous three-dimensional space of geometry is a result of simplifying conventions. To begin with, different senSes perceive different kinds of space, none of which coincides with geometric space. Visual space is two-dimensional (the third dimension originates in muscular impressions connected with the accommodation mechanism of the crystalline lens)

CONVENTIONALISM

and is not homogeneous for different areas of the retina receive different impressions. Nor is the space originating in kinesthetic impressions homogeneous, for different muscular efforts are required to reach objects situated at different distances from our bodies. Geometric space is a convention. We imagine that it has three dimensions because our organ of sight is built in such a way that the movements of accommodation effected by the lens and the convergent movements of the eyeballs are in accord, but it is possible to make lenses that obliterate this accord, and tben space has four dimensions, for each point of the previous space will itself constitute a continuum. However, since it is hard to assume that suitable optical glasses increase the number of dimensions in "objective" space, we must admit that it is convenient for us to ascribe three dimensions to space. "Convenient" here amonnts to "biologically useful," for belief in the existence of three-dimensional space independently of our experiences originates in associations between the object and bodily motions, by means of which we try to reach out for objects or to ward off blows. The localization of things in space is effected by reference to muscular impressions produced when we reach Ollt for things; out of the small space accessible to our body we construct the great space by extrapolation or by generalizing from our own spatial enviromnent, imagining a giant who can reach any place at will by extending his arm. The propositions of geometry are purely conventional-we have chosen the Euclidean system not because our store of experiences obliges us to do so, but because it is the moo, convenient in our everyday contacts with solid bodies.

3· Criticisms. We have summed up the most important arguments that were advanced in support of the conventionalist interpretation of scientific theory. Some of the illustrative examples have become obsolete, but the mode of thinking characteristic of this tendency can be readily illustrated from more recent examples.

However, these arguments were subjected to criticism, not

· THE ALIENATION OF REASON

just with reference to particular examples, but also to their underlying assumptions. Poincare, and later Cornelius, Schlick, and others rejected the idea that scientific laws have a purely definitional character. These critics of Le Roy pointed ant that he ignored the real meaning of the terms contained in snch propositions as "phosphorus melts at C 44°." "Phosphorus" does not stand here for "a hody that melts at C 440

," but a body with certain known physical and chemical properties. The proposition in question establishes the coincidence of these properties with the melting point, which cannot be decreed by any definition. Therefore this proposition is not a definition, for we assert it only when we know that the object it refers to is really present.

Ajdnkiewicz, who at one time expounded the idea of the analytic character of physical laws in greater detail, abandoned it and eventnally reached the conclusion that all so-called analytic propositions, though constituting a separate class, mnst be based on experiential data.

As we have seen, a nnmber of conventionalist argnments attempt to show that it is impossible to prove or disprove scientific hypotheses experimentally. Critics of these argnments took the line that they reflect an absolutist approach alien to actnal scientific practice, for they fail to take into acconnt the relative degree of probability as between rival hypotheses. To describe the cognitive sitnation involved solely in terms of propositions, these critics note, is beside the point of the scientific task: of conrse, when yon do treat scientific hypotheses in this fashion, then acceptance or rejection is an arbitrary choice. What actually makes np the scientist's mind

I as between rival hypotheses is consideration of their relative probability. For instance, it was formerly thonght that the speed of light is incalcnlably great. The experiments that dis-posed of this hypothesis were carried ant with the help of measnring instruments operating in accordance with the laws of mechanics. It does not follow, however, that we are free to

CONVENTIONALISM '43

opt for the former hypothesis disregarding the laws of mechanics, or that our choice between the two hypotheses is determined by personal preference, aesthetic considerations, or reasons of simplicity. In reality it is determined by the greater degree of probability we assign to the laws of mechanics that govern, for example, the functioning of clocks. Similarly, the old belief in the "spontaneous generation" of life from decaying flesh was disproved; and our decision to reject the old belief and to recognize the validity of the laws of the diffraction of light, such as entered into the manufactnre of the microscope, is not arbitrary, but determined . by the extent to which the hypotheses or laws in qnestion can be verified. Needless to say, experimental control is never perfect, and so scientific hypotheses are never absolutely infallible-this is why scientists attempt to verify the least probable hypotheses as well as the most probable ones. There are no absolnte proofs, but there i are degrees of proof-and the conventionalists ignore them.

The same applies to cases where experiment leads us to formulate new laws instead of modifying the old ones with the aid of additional hypotheses. The conventionalists claim this is done solely ant of preference for simplicity, but this is not so. There may be borderline cases, but in most the crncial factor is the degree of comparative probability as between the rival formulations. "Simplicity" is a dnbious basis for jndgment: wouldn't the simplest hypothesis of all be to rednce all phenomena to a single canse, the will of God, for example? Of course, the conventionalists do not go this far, bnt their concept of simplicity is vagne. Scrutinized closely with reference to actual choices made by scientists between one hypothesis and another, the real basis for preference tnms out to have been the degree of empirical reliability. Preference for one hypothesis rather than another, ou the ground that it accounts for more facts-whereas extensive modification of the other would be required hefore it conld do so-is not just preference for the more economical procedure, it is based on a conviction


that the hypothesis. -.;vl;tich accounts for the more facts is the "better" of the two. It enables us to predict a greater number of events. Here, too, we are not just appealing to the principle of economy but to the degree of verifiability.

The same observations apply to the question whether we are guided merely by consideratious of elegance or economy when we decide whether a curve describing a given fnnctional dependency is continuous, regular, etc. Although no finite number of experiments could transform our graph into one continuous line, yet it is possible to verify whether this can be done around each point of the line. The real question is: On whom lies the burden of proof-the man who wants to prove that the line is discontinuous or the mau who insists that it is continuous? It would seem that in this case, too, degree of probability decides the issue, not economy of effort or the elegant simplicity of the equation.

Duhem's observations on the difference between "practical" and "theoretical" facts have not proved immuue from criticism, either. The recording shown by a measuring instrument, if it is to be scientifically meaningful, must be kept within the limits of error possible with this intrument, and so it always falls within some greater or smaller range of numerical values. Choice among the infinite possibilities within this range is clearly not a matter of convention; as a rule it is not made, and would be highly improper. If your thermometer records temperature with a 1/100° margin of error, you cannot add arbitrary figures after the second decimal point-such a procedure would be simply nonsensical, scientifically.

Nor is the theOlY of the circular character of scientific proof immune from objections. It justly asserts that no scientific law is reducible, at any given stage of knowledge, to observations of particular facts, nor can it be based upon them exclusively. But this assertion does not justify the conclnsion that science is merely a coherent system of interdependent laws some of which mnst be accepted a priori, as it were, so that others

CONVENTIONALISM 145

may be logically inferred from them. For there can be no doubt-the whole history of science and technology demonstrates it-that more accnrate instruments can be manufactured with the help of less accurate ones. At a certain level of technological development there is no way of constructing complex instruments without using others equally complex; it does not follow that it is historically impossible to construct, say, an atomic reactor starting from an unpolished stone and a stick, since we know with certainty that this was actually what happened. To be sure, this achievement took thousands of years and involved the brains and muscles of millions of people, and it is hard for us to imagine all that was entailed, but there is no reason to suppose that certain instruments must exist ready-made before other instruments can be built.

The conventionalists described a real aspect of the science \ of their day, calling attention to the fictions implied in pnrely methodological assumptions, according to which science is al- \ ways created by inferring alleged "inductive laws" from alleged I "facts." They proved incontrovertibly that there is no such I thing as a )ure fact" in ~cientific ~xpe~ie.nce, and d~ew attention I to the eXistence of logical or lingmstlc conventions III the- i oretical knowledge. Their occasionally extreme formulations are I not often heard today, but the irremediably relative character I of empirical knowledge has since been generally recognized. I In reaction to the prevailing optimism of nineteenth-century I methodologists and philosophers, the conventionalists undermined confidence in the "objective" and unconditional validity of scientific results, did away with epis'temological absolutes in science, and with so-called "basic" facts and "pure" or "purified" experience. Their broader conclusions, according to which the empirical sciences are a wholly artificial creation, seem unconvincing; not so others of the arguments they put forward, on the basis of which we think today that there is no scientific knOWledge entirely free of "assumptions," and that it is impossible ever to get to the bottom of any verification. We, too,


doubt that we shall ever attain ultimate satisfaction in cognition, including scientific cognition.

\ The epistemological conclusions the conventionalists drew t from their own reflection have a radically relativistic character.

The propositions of physics, as Dnhem puts it, are neither true nor false, bnt convenient or inconvenient; a theoretical system may contain incompatible hypotheses when this is convenient. To compel physicists to observe strict logical coherence would be intolerable tyranny. Le Roy maintains that the sciences do not, in general, aspire to truth but to usefulness, that they are linguistic intruments serving to schematize and systematize experimental facts. In science, "truth," if the term may be used at all, is not conformity with the real, but at best conformity with experience. In other words, that which effectively meets the standards of experience is "true," not that which, irrespective of testing procedures, corresponds to the transcendent world I in some pecnliar, unintelligible fashion. The pragmatic criteria for choosing among various logically possible interpretations of

I experience (usefulness, convenience) are not merely criteria for \1'1 determining whether this or that is true, bnt instruments thanks

to which given propositions actually become true. Or: meeting standards or criteria is part of the definition of truth (whereas in the classical definition truth is a certain relation between propositions and reality, namely, a relation in which we assume that something is actually the case regardless of whether anyone has ascertained that it is the case, whether anyone knows or does not know that it is. In this classical definition truth is independent of any application of criteria; the latter serve merely to ascertain the trnth, they do not constitute it).

One peculiarity of the conventionalists is their emphasis on aesthetic criteria (among others) in the development of science. By contrast with Le Roy, who characterizes science by its technological applications, Poincare is of the opinion that science is pursued for the sake of the beauty it can create.

The epistemological conclusions reached by these two writers,

CONVENTIONALISM 147

in conjunction with their criticism of scientific theories, are ~ fairly vague. Sometimes they come close to empiriocriticism, sometimes they go beyond it in the direction of so-called epistemological idealism. Poincare says that objects external to us are merely groups of impressions that recur a sufficient number of times, and hence things are fairly constant combinations of sensory impressions; the harmony of the world revealed by scientific theories does not exist apart from the human mind, and the term "objective," if it is to he meaningfnl at all, stands for "intersubjective." The assertion that anything exists apart from thought is meaningless. Le Roy, in particnlar, says that matter is "the mind's inability to change the rhythm of its OWn duration beyond a certain limit," i.e., a component of experience that offers resistance to our will; at the same time, any characterization of matter that docs not rcfer to human eAl'erience, if only negatively, is out of the question.

4. Conventionalist ideologies. Certain general ideas advanced by the conventionalists are connected, both logically and in their own authors' minds, with their critique of scientific methodology. Duhem, in particnlar, says explicitly that hi.s interpretation of science forestalls all ohjections to the Catholic faith and Church. For since natural science makes no statements ahout the real world (as his criticism of the laws of physics shows) it cannot come into conflict with religious dogmas that are statements about real existents-the soul (that it is immortal), man (that his will is free), the Pope (that he is infallihle). For instance, unbelievers say that man's freedom is incompatible with the principle of conservation of energy. There is no such incompatihility, Duhem replies: the principle of conservation of energy is an artificial schematization of experiences and permits no inference as to real objects, and hence by definition cannot conflict with the COntent of the dogma in question. Consequently, spiritualist metaphysics retains its cognitive status and its claim to provide reliahle information about the world, since scientific laws have lost that status. In


his Physics of a Believer Duhem discloses the conscious intention behind his analyses of scientific method: they are an attempt to neutralize scientific knowledge in relation to metaphysical and religious controversies, to deprive naturalists and materialists of the advantaO'es they derive from equating scientific assertions

b .

and metaphysical beliefs, and to defend Catholic dogmas. .. Le Roy's philosophy reveals one possible way of combmll1g

conventionalism with Bergson's metaphysics. His starting point is the interpretation of science as symbolic description, exclusivelv concerned with utility and technological considerations, but:without cognitive value. The content of science implies no necessity, and its results are determined at least in part by our dcsire and need for manipulative simplicity; it does not disclose to us the truth about the world, though it may prepare us to accept it. This interpretation is completely consistent with Bergsonianism. If authentic cognition-knowledge of "the thing itself" -is possible, it lies in direct contemplation; it cannot be expressed in words, but penetrates the "inner" core of its object and is related to mystical experience. Whereas Le Roy's purely utilitarian interpretation of science was in keeping with the spirit of positivism in his own day, this further theme, which bids us look for other than scientific ways of communicating with the world, clearly goes beyond any positivist program, although the two are not contradictory (unless we assume that scientific experience is the only valid experience). Thns Le Roy, without abandoning his methodological views, was an active popularizer of Bergson's vision of the world.

We observe the same consistency when we survey Le Roy's activity as a champion of Catholic modernism. In the light of his critique, the Catholic view of the world can be defended, but not the Thomist interpretation of it, not Catholicism in tenns of any realist metaphysics. According to Le Roy, no rational arguments can strengthen religious faith, for it is irrational by definition. Moreover faith needs no such strengthening, for it belongs to a domain of life entirely different from

CO}''VENTIONALISM 149

intellectual activity. The practically useful but cognitively barren schematization of the world that science produces is contrasted with the religious life as the domain of non-discursive experience, in which the authentic being of God is revealed to believers in mystical contemplation, allegories, and figures of speech. Le Roy's mystical, symbolic, and allegorical faith, which he shared with the majority of modernist Catholics in his day, was, as is well known, severely condemned by the Church under Pius X. To the modernists the irrationality of their faith was to serve as a means of restoring harmony between secular and religious knowledge, between the State and the Cburch, between life here below and eschatological hopes. This harmony was to be based on a clear-cut distinction between the two spheres: they appear to conflict only because we do not realize how very different their situations in cognition and in life really are. The modernists were not just defending their faith against rationalistic criticism, but also trying to reform the Church by invalidating its claim to control over the secular sphere-an autonomous science, the secular state, and secular education. Their doctrine was intended to secularize public life while preserving all the Christian values-these last relegated, however, to the sphere of personal experience. It was, not without reason that the term "modernism" was applied to an important ideological movement and literary current in the same period, which was not specifically Catholic.

A special variety of conventionalism is represented by Hugo Dingler's philosophy. Adducing the same or similar arguments concerning the meaning of physical propositions, he attempted to formulate a systematic picture of the world based 011 voluntaristic assumptions. Because the totality of our knowledge is valid only ill relation to freely accepted conventions, and because these conventions are essentially utilitarian, i.e., adjusted to aims mankind freely sets for itself, our view of the world ought to be recognized as a creation of the human will. Furthermore, the original, basic facts of human experience involve the


will. The·free will sets itself freely chosen aims, and our picture of the world consists of assertions regarded as helpfnl for achieving those aims. This is a possible thongh certainly not a logically compelling interpretation of the consequences of conventionalism. Concerned with the place scientific thinking occupies in human life, it does not propose additional, allegedly richer sources of knowledge.

5. Consequences. Conventionalism represents an extension of ( positivist philosophy, but in one sense it is also a refutation of I it, the expression of a self-destructive tendency inherent in it.

What is essential from our point of view here is not any question abont the verifiability of scientific hypotheses, but the meaning of conventionalist criticisms in philosophical controversy.

J

Two circumstances deserve to be mentioned when we try to . determine the special part conventionalism has played in the history of positivism.

First, traditional positivist philosophy assumed that science is a classification of facts, which adds nothing to their contents. In other words, so-called generalization and explanatory interpretation have no independent cognitive functions, but serve as symbolic shorthand records of experiments actually carried onto This is, by and large, a nominalist assumption. The unobservable components in our description of the world belong to the domain of language. We describe "the given" with the aid of linguistic means pointing to something that is not "given" bnt is snpposed to refer to an nndisclosed nonspatial "internal" strncture of the phenomena. This does not imply, however, that we assert anything abont the non-observable world, that we ascribe it any definite features: we merely produce for onrselves a more convenient method of description, which enables ns to schematize experience more effectively than if it consisted only of detailed descriptions of the experiences themselves. The given or that which is "positive" constitutes the only objective content of science-the rest is an instrnment for

CONVENTIONALISM

communicating and memorizing it; no difference between "the given" and "the essence" is discoverable in science.

Now, what conventionalism set ont to criticize was this notion of "the given." The writers representing this current saw that to assume that the movement of thought from primordial fact to scientific schematization is a purely one-way movement is untenable: there is no such thing as an original or primordial fact, and scientific assertions, laws, and theories are not reducible to "fact," hence do not contain that "pure" elementary content that merely needs to be dressed up in words so as to be recorded more easily. Hence-in keeping with the spirit of positivism-the conventionalist depreciation of scientific values in favor of utilitarian or aesthetic ones. This variety of positivism to some extent weakened its assnmptions, for it undermined the belief in a simple relationship between perception and theory (perception-interpretation-verification) by laying bare the abstract character of the "original" perceptions. This gave rise to the question: Is the empirical position traditionally associateO) with positivist philosophy still tenable in the light of tIns criti- J cism?

The se.£2..nd point to be considered is this. Ever since Hnme, by redncing metaphysical doctrines and concepts to unproductive, purely verbal creations, positivism has been directed against both spiritualism and materialism. The methodological doctrine under discussion seems to be directed exclusively against scientists or naturalists opposed to spiritnalism and religious faith. Weare dealing here with an explicitly stated intention: to reconstmct the epistemological status of scientific activities in such a way as to avoid their possible conflict with religion and so to preserve the latter's cognitive validity-the validity of religious faith contrasted with a science whose values are primarily ntilitarian. In marked departnre from the eminently positivist tradition (which inclndes the empiriocriticists), the conventionalists nentralize only science-eliminate it as a possible competitor to spiritualist metaphysics. In theory, conventionalism would be

152 TIlE ALIENATION OF REASON

compatible with the opposite intention, namely, to neutralize religion as a possible competitor to science. However, no one seems to have attempted this.

Thus the conventionalist methodology is also a development from positivism in the sense that it culminates in the defeat of its purpose; for instead of radically cleansing human cognition of metaphysical incrustations, it merely discourages the cognitive aspirations of theoretical thinking to the profit of spiritualistic beliefs.

Needless to say, "additions" to POSlUVIst critique that take the form of religious ideas cannot he held to be organically connected with the fundamental rules of positivist thought: on the contrary, they are rather exceptional in the history of posit ivism, For all that, they show how positivist criticism may turn up in unexpected contexts. It turns out that positivism itself can rehabilitate metaphysics-eveu an extremely spiritualistic or mystical metaphysics-without in the least altering its assumptions, merely snpplementing them with further premises. Bergson's philosophy is regarded as the most radical attempt to defeat nineteenth-century positivism at the turn of the century. But Le Roy showed that Bergson's metaphysics is compatible with a positivist interpretation of science. This result may be regarded as destructive of positivism, for it discloses that its anti-metaphysical tendency can be overcome withont violating its rules, and even snggests that, in accordance with the same mles, once science has been rednced to a ntilitarian pursnit, we should look elsewhere for the satisfaction of pnrely cognitive needs. At the same time, this sitnation may be interpreted as a victory of positivist thonght: it shows that even its adversaries regard its

{

results .as ~reversible, i.e., have resigned themse:ves to the fact that SCIentIfic knowledge cannot have metaphYSIcal pretensIOns, and that metaphysical aspirations mnst conseqnently find justifications other than those scientific knowledge can provide. If so, Bergson's philosophy is after all the fruit of positivist conqnests: it accepts science in the form given it by positivist criticism;

CONVENTIONALISM 153

it agrees to doom it to eternal mechanism, i.e., recognizes that its place in hnman life is pnrely practical or technological and seeks to satisfy its thirst for knowledge by turning to other sources.

Whether we decide to recognize the alliance between positivism and vitalism as a victory or a defeat for positivism, depends on whether we classify the spiritualist or Catholic positivists nnder the history of positivism or nnder the history of spiritualist metaphysics. In the former case they will figure on the debit side in the ledger of positivism, in the latter they will rather tend to enhance its credit. The matter is not entirely nnimportant: its timeliness is readily to be discerned in contemporary religions thonght-namely, in the works of those theologians who took cognizance of the positivist critiqne of metaphysics, and, having accepted the nentrality of scientific knowledge, try to characterize the meaning of religions faith without appealing to rational argnments drawn from science. We will attempt below to snggest an interpretation of this state of affairs, in the light of which the qnestion we have jnst raised -victory or defeat?-will turn out to have been falsely formnlated.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Pragmatism and Positivism

What is usually called "pragmatism" is not as a rule regarded as falling within the history of positivist philosophy, but is treated rather in relation to the so-called "philosophy of life." The latter designation, taken in a broad sense, refers not only to a specific German "school," but also to other philosophical schools that treat human culture in biological terms and claim that it is impossible to evaluate intellectual life and its productions from any other point of view. Pragmatic philosophy, at least that version of it most readily associated with the name, can certainly he so characterized, but it is easy to see that it also has affinities with at least one variety of positivism, namely the one we dealt with above in discussing Mach and Avenarius (the affinities are especially close "~th the latter).

Here we are solely concerned with this one aspect of pragmatism, and we will not go into the various complications and ramifications of the doctrine as a whole. Our aim is to lay hare the peculiar connection that exists between positivist thought and the so-called philosophy of life, and to show how certain positivist postulates tilt over into their opposites once they are interpreted in a particular way. For it is well known that radical positivists look upon the philosophy of life as diametrically opposed to their rules of thinking and have often condemned it in the name of scientific philosophy.

Pragmatism is held to be, no doubt justly, the most original American contribution to the history of philosophy. After a pe-

PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM '55

riod marked by the dominance of transcendental idealism and Br~tish versions of Hegelianism, the United States produced a philosopillcal style that long enjoyed the reputation of being "typically American," especially well suited to the manners, customs, and popular ideals of that part of the world at a time when its outlook was most optimistic and its spirit of enterprise most energetic. In its fully developed form, pragmatism Was a reaction against the absolutism of closed metaphysical systems, but also ~gainst scienticist and materialist metapbysics. As a philosophy, Its most characteristic claim was that it is a flexible instrument in everyday life.

r. Peirce's positivism. The origin of tins philosophy, however, har~ly ,:oreshad?wed its eventual development. The term "pragmatIsm was comed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-I914), who used it to characterize a scientific method for distinguishing properly fommlated questions from fictitious ones, valuable answers from unrewarding ones, real matters of controversy from purely verbal ones. In connection with this program Peirce formulated rules closely allied to the best traditions of positivism.

Widespread interest in Peirce's philosophic and scientific contributions is of relatively recent date. In his lifetime Peirce was not so much unknown as misunderstood, for William James presented him to the public as the originator of a doctrine that Was in fact originated by William James himself. In the end Peirce preferred not to be called a "pragmatist," on the grounds that the far more famous hut frivolous James had totally misrepresented his doctrine.

Peirce had an encyclopedic mind and was active in almost every field of natural science. He stressed the need for rigorous :nethod in e~periment and was anxious to cure philosophy of its 1l1veterate vices-verbalism and idle speculation. His writings are somewhat pedantic and highly impatient of human stupidity; they faithfully reflect his personality, which appears to have been a difficult one. He had no academic career, and none of his books was published in his lifetime; as for snch disciples as


he made, he hastened to dissociate himself from them. From around 1870 on, he published articles in which he pointed out errors in scientific and lay thinking alike; one of these articles, entitled "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878), has become a classic of nineteenth-centnry philosophy.

Peirce's earliest observations, at least, are simple and lucid. He maintained that we must not rely on the feeling of selfevidence in cognition, for it is often misleading. Once we have snfficiently familiarized ourselves with any idea, it comes to seem perfectly clear. There is no idea so ohscure that someone coul.d not come to regard it as self-evident. Furthermore, authentic knowledge is a sum total of discursive components expressed in symbols accessible to all. To believe that the world or any of the things that make it up is in principle inexpressible in langnage is anti-scientific. The rnles of thinking are fnndamentally the same in every sphere of human inquiry. The sciences have a certain number of methodological rules common to them all: namely, rules of clarity, criticism, verifiability, and objectivity. Philosophy can achieve scientific status and develop empirical methods if only it will rid itself of meaningless terms and falsely formulated problems.

What, then, is to be done? The only function of thinking is to lead us to certain convictions. A conviction or belief-the product of thinking-performs two functions. It appeases doubt and determines a specific rule of behavior. Every judgment strengthens a practical rule, which can be expressed as a conditional sentence, the main clause of which is in the imperative mood. In other words, the meaning of any statement we accept lies in how, and whether, we actually carry it out. To find whether a statement means anything, we must ask how and whether it affects our actions and expectations; to find out what it means exactly, we need only consider what practical consequences it involves. Peirce explicitly goes so far as to say that the meaning of a judgment is entirely exhausted in its practical

PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM 157

consequences-according to him, this is what defines pragmatism.

The main pnrpose of this theory is to eliminate pseudo-convictions and pseudo-ideas from intellectual life, to arrive at a criterion that will enable us to deal with answerable questions, and only with answerable questions. According to Peirce, the matter is of the utmost importance: a great many people waste their time on matters unworthy of inquiry or even-something that smacks of intellectual debaucbery-like to amuse themselves with questions they know to be insoluble. It is easy to detect deep mystery where verbal confusion alone creates the problem. How, then, are we to formulate a criterion for distinguisbinil real problems from fictitious ones? Practical applicability affords I the best test. If two statements produce the same practical effect, there is no doubt but that tbeir meanings are identical; an assertion that changes nothing in our expectations of the em irical ~ means nothing at all. Discourse that serves only to produce certain emotions in us, for instance, bas nothing to do with thinking, any more than fresh thinking is involved when we repeat a statement in a second language. It will readily be seen that the majority of theological and metaphysical controversies tnrn out to be meaningless in the light of this criterion. Most of the assertions involved may not deserve to be called false in the positivist sense, but they will turn out to be concatenations of sound devoid of semanti.c value. Catholics and Protestants fancy themselves in disagreement abont the meaning of transubstanti.ation; but if they will consider the practical consequences involved in the assertion that wine is literally blood and by the assertion that it is blood only figuratively, they will see at once that neither of these assertions entails any expectations concerning the occurrence of empirically knowable events. Hence we may safely conclude not that the controversy cannot be settled or refer to some profound mystery of existence, but simply that there is no matter for controversy, that the controversy is more apparent than real. The idea of "force" was and still is taken


to stand for a mysterious reality of which we grasp the effects but not the "essence." Once we apply our pragmatic criterion of meaning, however, the mystery turns out to be a verbal fiction. For tbere is no difference discernible to physics between the statement that force "is" acceleration and the statement that force "produces" acceleration. The world has no un~hservable properties "hidden" behind the observable ones, and It IS only philosophers' fondness for systems that makes them . less c~ncerned with how things are in reality than WIth dlscovenng which assertions are or are not compatible with the constructions they invent. Thinking worthy of the name consists in asking questions that admit of possible answers: an~ers such ~s eventually compel general agreement. A question IS real, I.e., IS a question properly speaking, only wheu an answer to It can be found -even though it may take a great deal of trouble, and even though we are not sure that mankind will Jas't long enongh to find it.

Every word denoting a thing or a quality must be subjected to the pragmatic test before it can be legitimately employed. To know what it means we must state the practical steps by which we can verify whether a given object corresponds to the word in question. "To say that a body is heavy means simply that, in the absence of opposing force, it will fall" ("How to Make Our Ideas Clear"). It does not mean that it has some property of "heaviness" that merely "manifests itself'.' whe:l it falls. We can verify that a diamond is harder than lion smce we can scratch iron with a diamond, but no such test can be made for the assertion that the seraphim are higher in rank than the cherubim (the latter example is not Peirce's but is in keeping with his intentions).

Most commentators agree that there is an essential difference between Peirce's early writings (best kuown today) and those dating from after 1890 in which he criticized philosophical determinism, came out in favor of freedom, asserted that new creations are possible, made use of anthropomorphic expression


in describing nature, and abandoned his earlier nominalist interpretation of scientific laws.

However, the earlier writings are what made his name impOl'tant in the history of positivism. Peirce was aware that his leading ideas were in the tradition of Hnme. But he thought that a clear formulation of the criterion of meaning, appealing to practice as the only possible touchstone, would supplement the old empiricism or state its most important recommendations with greater accuracy. Pragmatism as he saw it-and this circumstance is basic for grasping the difference between him and later pragmatists-sought to formulate criteria of meaning, but did not renounce the traditional idea of truth. In other words: Peirce asked that practical effectiveness be treated as a criterion of truth, and practical tes'tability iSthe rule by means of which meaningful statements are to be~gllishedTr£m m""ningless Olles. He did not assert that to apply this criterion creates, so to speak, a situation of truth-he did not define trnth a~ practical effectiveness. ~ waS to him a ~ation of correspondence between judgments and actual states of affairs, just as it was to Aristotle: em..Eirjca! criteria merely hel"e us discover it. Nor did Peirce think that practical usefulness deterl~he meaningfulness or rationality of cognitive procedu;:.es. On the contrary, he emphasized the purely cognitive functions of science, in the conviction that its technological applications, though resulting from effective knowledge, do not set limits to scientific interest and cannot lead to any prohibitions concerning the objects of thought. On this score Peirce as an example of the "purely" scientific mind, concerned with perfecting knowledge, not with its possible immediate benefits. His writings reflect, along with a pedantic kind of dryness, the typically positivist tendency to do away with fictitious differences between the world as we observe it and its alleged hidden qualities. Reality is not the "manifestation" of any other, "deeper,'! lTIOre

enigmatic and so more authentic reality. The world contains no Tystery, merely problems to be solved. Differences between


phenomenon and essence, between empirical qualities and the nature of things are purely verbaL The criterion of practice serves only to unmask the cognitive futility, the fictitious character of such differences that, when taken for granted, are destructive of human thinking, of life itself, of the whole universe of values. In this sense Peirce may also be regarded as a cham-

(pion of scientism, that is, the doctrine according to which any I question that cannot he settled by the methods of the natural

)and deductive sciences is an improper qnestion, and every state

. ment containing an answer to an improper qnestion is itself 'improper or, more precisely, meaningless.

2. The pTagmatic Tehabilitation of metaphysics. Like Peirce, William James (1842-1910) studied natural science before he took up philosophy. But his intellectual orientation was very different from Peirce's-something James seems scarcely to have noticed. To Peirce, natural science was above all a school of experimental rigorousness in pursuit of scientific truths independent of ourselves. To James, it served primarily to justify a biological interpretation of man; man, according to him, not only in his physical existence but also in his intellectual behavior, in his scientific and logical works, is in the grip of biological necessity. His medical background may have contributed to the development of this outlook, but its essential element is the spirit of utilitarianism carried to radical consequences: extended not only to the world of values but also to the purely cognitive functions.

The opposition between impartial explanatory knowledge and useful knowledge was certainly nothing new. We can trace the beginnings of this idea in writings by fourteenth-century nominalists, who in effect appealed to the criterion of usefulness when they questioned the value of the Aristotelian categories for understanding the world, and when they ascribed a purely practical rather than a descriptive meaning to scientific knowledge (particularly astronomy). Later, this was how Osiander interpreted the Copernican theory when he defended it on the

N{AGMATISM AND POSITIVISM

grounds of its usefulness rather than its truth in the traditional sense of the term. Purely utilitarian interpretations of various religious and metaphysical truths are often to be met with in the history of modern philosophy-in Hobbes, in certain of the Encyclopedists, and in Kant. However, though such ideas were inspired by different motives, the partisans of a "pragmatic" interpretation of certain domains of knowledge were as a rule convinced that there also exists a domain of truth accessible to man, where we behave not just as though the world looks this way or that, but also entertain the idea that it truly is this way or that.

James's doctrine is most clearly distinguished by the unlimited applications he makes of the utilitarian conception of knowledge. ~.Qries are instruments for reacting efficiently to the world" means of ma!li.p.ulating things or coming to practic:I-gnps with J;hs;m. There is no reason to ascribe any other meaning or value t~hem. The meaning of every statement is wholly contained ilL the practical consequences it entails; when two different st;::,tements result in the same behavior their meanings are identica.s-a statement that involves no practical consequences means nothing.

Iqterpreted ~a certain way, these rules bring to mind Peirce's ~riQl!",.J3uLvmat-Jam.es_J:rieL.t<>-de-f~-y-di£E"re!lt: he

does not aim at merely formulating criteria for distinguishing meaningful statements from meaningless ones, and methods for determining the meaning of a statement; what he asserts is that the meaning of a statement is iden . cal with its practical consequences, that these onset uences re the meaniH not merely a m,;:ans of arriving at it. Hence the distinction hetween the true and the false according to utilitarian criteria, which is fundamental to James, is not to he met with at all in Peirce. There is no such thing as truth viewed as abstract conformity independent of human intervention hetween a given statement and that to which the statement refers. Truth is nothing but the usefulness the statement has for our actions. As against Peirce,


to whom true statements disclose their truth by the effectiveness of actions based on the assumptiou that they are true, to James, only that is true whose recognition benefits us in some way:" any other conception of truth is meaningless. Thus truth is not I

I correspondence between our statements and the way things are, but between our statements and the possible gratifications we may experience by accepting these statements. This is a purely biological interpretation of cognition: just as the knee-jerk reflex is neither "true" nor "faLse" but, at most, biologically normal or pathological, and just as the secretion of insulin can be "good" or "bad" according to whether it is useful or harmful to the organism, so the "secretion" of tflooght is to be judged by the same criteria. Man's cognitive behavior is a specific type of reaction to his environment: it is true when this reaction is ------ -- , biologically useful, "false" in the opposite case. Truths, scientific theories, .. aI19. bel~efs ....... !!Ie ..... not.correl:l.ti~Eati()ns..1I)i!~.:: p),.!ld.eD> ()fu5,-liutpracticaLmeansior dealing with the environ-ment. -'-Radical relativism is the natul'al conseqll,<nce of tbis positiOn. One and the same judgment may be true or false depending on the situation in which it is made. It is impossible to speak of the trutlL of a judgment without specifying for whom and in what situation it is true. To know the truth, one might say, is to be efficient, sound in practical affairs. Pragmatism is a means for evaluating cognitive contents of every kind by judging how effective they are when applied to whatever is vitally important. Truth characterizes judgments in respect to human situations. Generally speaking, to James cognition is evaluation conceived of as a technique of success. More especially, pragmatism renounces all prohibitions referring to the assertion of any conviction, so long as these prohibitions are motivated by logical considerations, by purely intellectual requirements, or by metaphysical doctrines. We are entitled to believe anything at all if believing it is advantageous to us or helps us in life. The "only reality" is success in life broadly (also subjectively) under-

PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM

stood. "Usefulness" can in turn be characterized by instinctual requirements. Reason is an extension of instinctual life, consciousness an instrument of the latter. We have various instincts, which reveal their presence in various periods of life: the instinct of fear, competitive, fighting, acquisitive instincts (according to James, the acquisitive instinct manifests itself in man before the age of two). Thus we must infer that we are free to recognize anything and everything whose recognition satisfies instinctual needs and hence leads to increase in our possessions, success in competition and struggle. The intellect has purely guiding functions: it makes no sense to ask, How are things constituted really? bur only, What do I get if I believe tIllS or that? And since ~ given belief may be usefnl to one man and harmful to another-which is obvious, and of which James is perfectly aware-there is no reason to shrink from the inference that something may be false for me that is true for someone else, or even that something may be false for me today that was true yesterday. Science is not a collection of truths in any current, traditional, metaphysical, or transcendental sense, but a collection of practical directives that make sense when they can be carried out, and that are true when they further life, mnltiply energy, provide gratification. Or: a cognitive act is an emotionally stimulated act of the will. That assent to a belief is not the automatic result of the compelling pressure of the world on the mind, but an act of volition or resolve is a Cartesian idea· , , however, according to Descartes, this circumstance serves only to account for the presence of error in our beliefs (the will is free to accept or reject a judgment in regard to which reason operating in accordance with the correct rules would have' to suspend judgment or to judge differently). According to James, reason has no rules other than those that incline the will to assent; consequently the cognitive act is not subject to evaluation by comparing this act, independently of human assent, with an equally independent real state of affairs; rather, the cognitive act is this very assent, which is motivated by the hope of attain-


ing gratification thereby. To recognize something is to make a practical commitment thanks to which a fragment of the world promises gratification, provided it is treated in a certain way. There is no difference hetween the conviction that this fragment of the world has "in itself" these or other qualities and the vital impnlse that accepts this conviction in the hope of success. In this sense it may be said that from the pragmatist point

(of view truth is continually being made and remade: onr cogni- \ hive bond with the world is the continual making of the world.

Needless to say, it is easy to point out pae.doxical cOl}§e~oCthi~_xiew (and this has often been done), particularly if we consider the extremer formulations scattered throughout James's writings. If the ground of assent to any judgment is identical with the psychological motive for assenting to it in the hope of gaining some advantage thereby, we may ask: On what grounds do I assent to the judgment that Socrates died in 399 B.C.? If asserting this judgment affords me no advantage, it is meaningless. Suppose I am a student taking an examination On the history of ancient philosophy: the knowledge contained in this judgment will then be useful, for it will help me to pass the test, but once I have passed it, the knowledge becomes useless and by the same token the statement about Socrates becomes nonsensical. Or: what is the meaning (to me) of the statement that Rome is situated on the river Tiber? Actually it means nothing at all for it cannot affect my behavior in any way. This would not be so, however, for an inhabitant of Rome who crosses bridges every day, and should lone day be a soldier in an army setting out to conquer Rome, this piece of geographical information will take on meaning for me, too, and the statement will ((become" true.

GAS a matter of fact James occasionally tempered the extremism

of his formulations, referring to the existence of a surplus of truths that have no present function but deserve to be rememcred since they may come in handy at some fnture time. Thus

it would be somewhat unfair (although one can take him up on


his extremer formulations) to ascribe to him the conviction that "truth" is solely that which can be nseful at a given moment, hie et nunc. Nevertheless, he upheld the fundamental conceptIOn of knowledge qualified only from the point of view of biological usefulness, and hence relative and devoid of all transcendental connotations. Just how large or small the "surplus'\ of only potentIally useful knowledge may be IS nowhere de- \ fined clearly, and the pragmatist remains free to set his own I boundaries.

A..!.!2!;her paradoxical consequence of this view, and one that deserves particular atteiitiOrl,-1Sthat the scope of truths we are entitled to accept is altogether unlimited, so long as they are useful to us in any respect whatsoever. This leaves room for any article of religious faith or metaphysical doctrine from which we expect to benefit in Some way. There would be no reason to give up religious convictions, considering that they may raise our spirits, protect us from discouragement, fill us with optimism. James does not shrink from drawing this mference, and accounts for this attitude by his aversion to

"dogmatism"; bis refusal to take a negative stand in religious matters follows from this. If the existence of God gives us certainty as to the moral order of the world, if belief in freedom of the will entails the promise of reward or stimulates our creative energies, we may believe the one and the other with the same certainty as the most reliable evidence of the senses.

Thus pragmatist philosophy amounts to a kind of ~el~m, a basic readiness to accept anything and everything, and boundless flexibility where moral rules enter into cognitive functions. Any other view is exposed to the objection of being rigidly dogmatic, of sacrificing the real values of life to abstract metaphysical fictions. This is indeed_the case on . it is granted tha'--E.:.ality has no inherent .'lualities that can be interprete as such, but is m~.-"----Collection of opp.ll.J:!J!nities fo~~ndividual suc~~l±st-&-itLpD.ssible

166 THE ALIENATiON OF REASON

'peaning."" Pragmatism starts from assumptions similar to those of empiriocriticism, but differs from the latter by its striking formulations, loose aphorisms, and analytical unscrupulousness. Like empiriocriticism, it attempts to ground our thinking about the world on a concept of "experience," which supersedes all "substantialized" entities such as matter or spirit, and treats them as secondary distinctions made within the area of experience itself; it also seeks to do away with unanswerable questions. But whereas, according to the empiriocriticists, the possibility of applying a judgment effectively consisted in the fact that the judgment entitles us to certain expectations in the world of experience, and that it can be tested by the success or failure of our predictions-according to the pragmatists it is sufficient that we be able to "do" something with a given judgment, to be entitled to regard it as meaningful. Here we see how metaphysics driven out the front door comes back again through the back door-only now not as a "truth" that discloses the secrets of being, but as a means to an end, were it only a spiritual balm or the injection of a stimulating drug. However, the pragmatic interpretation revealed consequences of the biologization of knowledge, which the empiriocriticists had not noticed. After all, they knew that both metaphysical doctrines and religious faith can be interpreted as instruments serving to

ensure the biological survival of the species, and at the same time were couvinced that scientific theories have the same character; thus they had no good reason to deny the former the same validity they granted the latter. On this score the pragmatic rehabilitation of metaphysics seems more consistent with the assumptions of radical biologism. James's philosophy, because it entitles us to believe anything at all provided our belief "pays," rules out all possibility of attaining the goal Peirce beld to be paramount-the distinction between nonsense and science. The question, What is truth? can in fact be interpreted as implying a certain metaphysical theory; this is why James replaces it with the question, What is worth believing? but he


formulates no limitations to prevent us from embracing the very metaphysical doctrine the former question implies, to avoid which the original question Was rephrased. It would appear that James uses the term "metaphysics" in a pejorative sense to designate specific theories (e.g., realist" epistemologies, determinism, any type of monism), but spares from this stigmatization doctrines that negate these theories or supply different answers for the Same questions. Indeed, James himself championed an image of the world that can be readily classified as "metaphysical," and that is closely related to the pragmatic method by its tolerance and openness. It is a plnralist image of the world, admitting of contradictions, emphasizing the variety of experience, its perpetual fluidity and novelty.

We have no reason to favor determinism; only a fragment of the world is known to us, and nothing obliges us to suppose that an immutable universal order governs everything. Despite the rationalist constructions of a Hegel or a Spencer the world is always open and fnll of possibilities, and only our belief that this is so makes life worth living. If an immntable order predetermines all that happens, if there are no surprises, no unpredictable evems, life is not worth living. There is no need to force every observed irregolarity into new regolarities, we are free to accept every fact individnally, we need not worry about coherence or regret that we possess no universal key to explain away all contradictions. Only the incorrigible metaphysician aSSlImes in advance that the world is governed by a single principle and that the variety of experience is merely its manifestation. What is real is the ever-changing flux of experience, within which we stake out points of concentration for practical purposes, to make the world more manageable; consciousness is composed of the same data as things, and the distinction between "inner" and "outer" is artificial and secondary. The data of experience-to which we have direct access, not just through ideas or representations-are signs enabling us to make predictions, and with our practical interests in mind


we organize these signs into snch groups as, for instance, "physical objects" or "minds." But experience itself contains no elementary particles that go to form richer strnctures, as associational psychology claims. On the contrary, psychic life is one continuous flnx; it is only by a process of abstraction that we break np the latter into parts and identify certain objects as "permanent." This whole system of differentiations is not governed by any intellectual rule, bnt is subject to will and fcelings, which pick ant things from the flux of experience, choose truths from among possible judgments, and determine values and beliefs.

The extraordinary popularity of James's ideas in the United States undoubtedly reflects the adaptability of the pragmatic conception of the world to currently recognized values. The pragmatic) theory of trnth is essentially a philosophy of individual success: its radical empiricism and opposition to barren metaphysics perfectly express the attitude of a man for whom "nothing counts" save what can help him get ahead in life. But it would be unjust to account for the popularity of pragmatism merely by the manners, customs, and social conditions of the country where it was born. Pragmatism developed a conception of the world that is interesting philosophically and deserves attention because, among other reasons, it showed that the catchwords of empiricism could be given an unexpected twist, that it was possible to rehabilitate metaphysics and religion without dropping any basic empiricist assumptions. Pragmatism disclosed a hitherto unforeseen connection beween the positivist approach to knowledge and the so-called philosophy of life.

One cousequence of pragmatism was to get rid of the dualism between value judgments and descriptive statements. From the pragmatist point of view exactly the same standards-namely, the standards of utility-are applied in the case of theoretical assertions, value judgments, and the assessment of social institutions. Thus there is no reason to break down our statements

J I. (

PRAGMATISM ANn POSITIVISM

into descriptive and valuational or, in the case of the latter , to look for different, non-empirical epistemological foundations. The traditional question concerning the difference between "the ~rue" and "the good"-and whether something is good "in Itsclf" or becomes good only in virtue of our decision-this question is eliminated once it has been established that truth ~s no more than one species of the genus "good,') and "good') IS defined in the utilitaTian sense. This is one of the possible ways to avoid the dichotomy that has proved so troublesome in the history of materialism and positivism, and that has been revived mOTe recently by the analytical schoo!'

3· Other versions of the pragmatic method. Its over-all meaning. The last-mentioned consequence of the pragmatic attitude is strikingly expressed in the philosophy of JQhn~y (1859-J952)· Convinced, like James, that practical applicability is a standard of value and criterion of truth, Dewey thought that this practical or instrumental approach is equally valid in reference to our ideas about the world the values we assert , , and our social and political institutions-in other words, that questions we put before accepting or rejecting a statement are of the same type as questions we ask about the desirability of some social activity. Consequently, jndgments are divided I into "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" from the point of view I of the goal we wish to achieve; that is, they favor or obstruct actions leading to this end. This is the meaning of truth and falsity in the instrumental sense. Dewey, however, was not so much interested in the conditions of individual snccess as in the improvement of )?ublic life and the prospects of political democracy, and for this reason his epistemology departs from James's pragmatism in one essential respect: he asserts the existence and supremacy of values that are not cormected with individual success, but bind all men equally-in other words, the existence of a primary collective utility that can provide ~ith c'i~eria for soclallY-impurra1:tt;::hPjces.This is why the relativity of ~i:ruth·is"lie""conceives of it does not entail the


paradoxical consequences mentioned above. !~e.t~~{the.Pllil()sophe1' sets.J.or.himself is to analyze the social effects.resultitJg from the acceptance. of given doctri"es; ideas,orid~aIs~j1Jst as we' al]alyze the effects ofgivenp()litical i11stitutiollS. Thus 'i:l~e~e is no difference between cognition and valuation, for knowledge as a whole is valuation, an attempt to describe the reality of the "good" from the point of view of our practical behavior. But since questions about usefulness refer primarily to social usefulness, "truth\" too~ ceases to be a means to an individual end at a certain moment in man's life, and becomes an instrument of social action; it remains relative as before, but relative to a broadly understood "collective interest" and hence preserving a permaneJ.1.>;e.-a:wiJnt=DfectiVe~ that J ames's doctrine, if consistently applied, could not ascribe to

it. Philosophy plays a part in social conflicts and is not exempt f.rom awareness of the part it plays; it can be conservative or it can favor social progress, and should recognize this. In contrast to James, Dewey was convinced that religious ideas cannot function as socially important values, that they block human initiative, people's ability to control their own lives and develop their intelligence, inventiveness, and creativity. In this sense, such ideas are "false" -we have no other criteria for evaluating them. All in all, Dewey was perhaps closer to Peirce than to James for, although he preserved to the last au aversion and contempt for metaphysical controversy, with which he had become familiar in his youth as a pupil of American Hegelians, he believed in the possibility of permanently valid and intersubjective criteria of knowledge, and hence in the existence of criteria that cannot be invalidated by an individual's momentary caprice or need. Moral values like cognitive values preserve this socially constant character; although there are no transcendent or transcendental values irrevocably "given" to man, it is false to conclude that the world of values is governed by the principle of de gustibus . . . , as most positivists imagine. Values are not defined by their ability to

PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM 17 1

provide immediate gratification to individual men, but by their lasting social usefulness, and only that should be asserted as a value whose effects on collective life can be publicly tested and recognized as useful. In his attempts to construct the concept of a social subj ect, in his instrumentalist interpretation of the philosopher's life, in his hope for the practica.! realization of philosophy, Dewey was closer to the Marxist tradition than J ames, although he departed from this tradition by his political liberalism and personalist orientation.

At the turn of the century pragmatism enjoyed great popularity and was developed along a number of lines in Enropean philosophy as well. In England it was used by F. C. S. Schiller (1864-1937) to criticize transcendentalist doctrines; he reached even more radical conclusions than James by reducing all cognitive functions to acts of personal expression and declared that questions concerning truth in the mimetic sense are meaningless. He also projected a voluntaristic logic dealing solely with the expressive relation between judgments and the intentions of the person who asserts them. The pragmatist movement showed considerable strength in Italy where it waS for a time championed by Giovanni Papini; one of Yapini's pupils was Mussolini, who associated this philosophy with Fascist doctrines of irrationalism, voluntarism, and activism. It would, however, he absurd to take this extension of pragmatism seriously in a survey of the latter. One of the few champions of pragmatism in Poland was E. M. Kozlowski.

Generally speaking, in Europe this philosophy was one important strand within the modernist style of thinking, one among several varieties of a "philosophy of life" that strove for immediate knowledge and "contact with the thing itself," a contact no metaphysical schemata were expected to provide. On this score also its empirical alertness, pedantic nominalism, and its ostracism of metaphysical dogma-in short, all that relates pragmatism to the positivist tradition-falls within the modernist current. The founders of pragmatism themselves pointed ont


their affinities with the main positivist tradition, and this claim has a real foundation. At the same time, this branch of positivism has its paradoxical side because it enables empiricism to accept metaphysics and religious faith, as well as to apply the same criteria to value judgments as are applied to scientific judgments. This paradox is one of countless arguments a historian of philosophy may adduce to illustrate the fact that philosophical assumptions admit of the most various interpretations, that there is no limit to the combinations of possible ideas in this field.

The late nineteenth-century 01' modernist variety of positivism was characterized by the deliberate linking of genetic and methodological questions in studying human cognition. Quaestio iuris and quaestio facti in respect of the value of knowledge became almost indistinguishable. If cognition is a specifically human instrument of biological adaptation, it may well seem that meaningful qnestions concerning the validity of cognitive procednres refer only to whether they are useful to us, not to whether they enable ns to know the world "in itself" (for such a purpose is not present in the animal world to which we belong, and from which we differ in respeet to forms of communication, not because we have any ties with a transcendental truth). If this is so, pragmatism would be an attempt to draw the ultimate epistemological conseqnenees from naturalism, and it would indeed be impossible to separate the quaestio iuris from the question of the origin of knowledge. But by the same token it becomes impossible to uphold the scientistic position, i.e., the injunction to refrain from statements unless they meet the requirements of natural seience; in other words, the prohibition on ascribing meaning to such statements is no longer jnstified.

One may thns be tempted to see a certain logic in the emergence of the next p~ase of positivist tbought, whose distinctive feature is that it draws a clear line separating questlOns about the origin of knowledge from questions about Its v~ and attempts to deal with the latt~E .... sues~hile. neglecting tl1eformer-in other words, a return to th~'illiS1:ic POSItIon.

'.

PRAGMATISM A."1D POSITIVISM 173

So-called logical empiricism (occasionally known as "neo-positivism") might in this view be regarded as a return to positivist restraint after the disintegration of positivism in the "modernist" period; it would then be the philosophical expression of the end of a period of extreme epistemological license. Many representatives of this doctrine hoped that the limitations it imposed on thought wonld counteract the threat of ideological fanaticism; theirs is the attitude of independent intellectuals anxious to cont.ribute to social health. Scientisrn ,vas one ilnportant component in this program.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Logical Empiricism: A Scientistic Defense of TbTeatened Civilization

r. The SOW"ces of logical e1l1jJiricis1I1. How it defines itself. In respect to content, logical empiricism or logical positivism falls within the over-all development usually designated analytical philosophy. The last-mentioned term denotes not only the Oxford and Cambridge movement, initiated above all by G. E. Moore, but a worldwide movement convinced that the proper task of philosophy is analysis of language, both everyday and scientific, and the elucidation of concepts, assertions, and controverted points. By this approach, it was hoped, many traditional questions would at last be settled or dismissed as meaningless.

Initially, the objectives of the analytical school did not imply any specific approach to epistemological or metaphysical problems, nor did this school prejudge what philosophical questions are meaningful. What distinguished it from other schools was the stress it laid on the idea that philosophy must start with exact logical analysis of the language in which scientific questions are formulated. Dislike for grandiose, all-embracing metaphysical systems is a natural concomitant of this attitude, yet at the same time this school admitted the most varied positions on traditional philosophical issues. Thus, Moore and his numerous disciples analyzed the meaning of terms in every field of knowledge and everyday life, without asking whether their analyses were compatible or incompatible with existing philosophical theories. What mattered to them was primarily to lay bare the vague intuitions concealed in our speech, the verbal hybrids

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM 175

or murky associations involved in our statements about the world, and to formulate all scientific and philosophical questions so they may be understandable and acceptable to all.

Because Moore's ideas were firmly rooted in the tradition of English empiricism and iucluded positivist elements, they considerably influenced the development of analytical philosophy. The latter cannot, however, be included as a whole in a history of positivism, for many of its more prominent representatives advocated ideas decidedly not positivist in the sense considered here. Moore himself, in defiance of the positivist tradition, defended the objectivity of valuational predicates (such as "good" and "bad") in ethics, and held that they are irreducible to empirical qualities. Bertrand Russell, one of the founders of the analytical school, who helped forge the logical tools that were to have such wide use in this ceutury, cannot be regarded as a positivist, if only for his emphatic rejectiou of nominalism. Alfred North Whitehead, co-author with Russell of Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), who began as a mathematician and went on to create a metaphysics and a distinctly religious cosmology, was not a positivist by any standard. Nor was one ] an Lukasiewicz, the discoverer of multivalent logics, who also rejected nominalism and whose philosophical essays are in part colored by religious convictions.

Thus, although analytical philosophy and logical positivism as practiced by the younger generation have become well-nigh indistinguishable, we will not discuss analytical philosophy as a whole, but concentrate on the positivist tendencies manifested ';ithin it in the period between the two world wars. The positIVIst current within analytical philosophy exhibits with particular clarity a feature Bertrand Russell regarded as the very essence of the latter: namely, it combines empiricism with an extensive application of mathematical methods. While the same combinatio~ .has characterized natural science since Galileo, logical empmclsm claims credit for having first realized its importance in elucidating traditional philosophical questions.


Until the advent of logical empiricism, we are told, there had been two rival methods of cognition in philosophy-the mathematical method of demonstration and the experimental method of investigation. Depending on tbe importance ascribed to the one or the other, tbey led to antithetical conceptions of knowledge: rationalism and empiricism. The logical empiricists set out to do away with tbis split. They hold that experience is the only way of iearning anything about the real world. Math-

\ \ :matics, they say, c~nnot descrihe the w.odd, but it provide~ an mdlspensable techmque of reason1l1g. Formal lOgIC has developed into a powerful instrument that extends the scope of empirical science by eliminating many psendo-problems and by recognizing its inability to solve ontological problems. Neither IO<ric nor mathematics can discover the strncture of the extrali;o-nistic world but both increase the effectiveness of lingnistic

D ' signs and the correcrness of our deductive reasoning. Some prop-ositions of logic and mathematics are valid independently of observation or experiment, not because they disclose any immanent necessity, bnt because they are analytic propositions. Devoid of content, they owe their validity to linguistic conventions associated with the meanings ascribed to the terms

. involved in them. There are no such things as synthetic a priori judgments, i.e., judgments that can be validated independently of experience and at the same time describe the real world in any respect whatever. This is one of the main assumptions of logical elnplf1Clsm.

Philosophy, if it is to exist as an independent discipline alongside the other branches of knowledge, cannot take the place of science in any question concerning the structure of the world; all it can do comes down to logical analysis of the syntactic and semantic properties of language, especially the language of science. Philosophy in this sense becomes a discipline dealing with methods of scientific procedure, such as the testability of hypotheses, the legitimacy of inferences, and the meaning of terms used in science. This discipline, sometimes called "meta-


science," was especially spurred on by scientific developments earlier in this century, above all those connected with the study of antinomies in the theory of classes and with the theory of relativity. These developments showed up the need for revision of certain modes of thinking and speaking, the detailed linguistic analysis of expressions, for example, which are taken for granted yet entail material consequences. We cannot here enter into discussion of these questions. In any case, extremely rapid advance in symbolic logic seemed to justify the hope that within a short time it would be possible either to solve all the old philosophical problems or to dismiss them as incorrectly formulated. Some even imagined that the new logic would be the characteristica universal;s Leibniz had dreamed of, and that it would supply an infallible means for solving all meaningful philosophical problems.

For all the transformations, controversies, and volte-faces that have marked the history of logical empiricism, the doctrine discloses certain permanent features. First, it regards rationalism as the opposite of irrationalism, and bence maintains that only those statements about the world whose content can be controlled by means accessible to all are entitled to the name of kno\vledge (or have cognitive value); also that there are legitimate ways of attaining knowledge of the world other tban those nsed by natural science and mathematics. Second, it upholds nominalism both in its theory of knowledge and, more particularly, in its theory of meaning, theory of matbematical objects, and theory of values. Third, it maintains an anti-metaphysical attitnde, stemming from the conviction that so-called metaphysical statements do not meet the requirements of experimental contra! because they do not deal with specific phenomena falling under specific classes (rather, with the world "as a whole"), and hence cannot be disproved by any conceivable method. Fourth it professes scientism, that is, it asserts the essential unity of the scientific method, accounting for differences between the sciences on this score-especially between the socia! and the physical sciences-

/


by the immaturity of the former, though it is believed they will eventually be modeled on the latter.

All these features of logical empiricism are positivistic. However, in its early phase, the vitality of the doctrine waS not due solely to tbe circumstance that its adherents concerned themselv~s with important scientific problems posed by symbolic logic, the theory of relativity, and the guantum theory. According to them, this philosophy was to perform important social functions: to provide a scientific approach to personal convICtions, notably, and thereby help eradicate irrational prejudice, ideological fanaticism, and the use of brute force in public affairs. It was not to be just a science, but also to perform an edncational task in the struggle against irrational beliefs that poison collective life and give rise to attempts to impose them by force. The discredit into which nationalist ideologies fell after the First World War certainly contributed to this attitude and attracted many intellectuals to this school of thought; what especially appealed was the idea that ideological claims should be tested by scientific methods. The positivists of that day liked to repeat Locke's saying that we may hold any belief only to the extent it is justified. This slogan, which briefly sums up the fundamental rule of practical rationalism, was directed against all ideological pressnres and fostered a spirit of tolerance in collective life. The positivists, then, championed a scientific attitnde to the world in defense of democracy, tolerance, and cooperation. They professed a kind of utopianism, based on the assumption that the attitude of the intellectual whose convictions are more or less detetmined by strict scientific thinking could become the socially dominant way of thinking, and that this attitude could serve as a model for society as a whole, once education had been imbned with this spirit.

Although it makes much more nse of logical instruments and syntactic analysis, logical positivism has a certain community of aims with Mach's doctrine. A real continnity of persons and institutions further justifies regarding this movement as an out-


growth of empiriocriticism. From the outset, logical empiricism was very aware of itself as an original "school." Its adherents shared a certain number of basic assnmptions and were prompt to attack opposing points of view. Its langnage was brutally aggressive, its style rathe~~ apodictic in a sectarian way> and its conviction that it was r~volutionizing the history of thought beyond question. Nothing conld shake the early logical empiricists' faith in the greatness of their cnltnral mission.

The most active early center was Vienna in the 1920S, especially the gronp of philosophizing scientists and mathematicians who came together in a seminar condncted by Moritz Schlick (1882-1936). The most prominent members of this group, known as the Vienna Circle, were Rudolf Carnap (b. 1891, now in the U.S.), and Karl Popper (b. 1902, now in England). Some philosophers of a related tendency were active in Berlin: Hans Reichenbach, Richard von Mises, M. Dnbislav. In Denmark, Sweden, and England other gronps and individnals appeared, some independent of the Vienna Circle, some not. Poland was a very active center of logical empiricism, where a group of K. Twardowski's pnpils, thongh rather nnlike in philosophical disposition, analyzed many qnestions in a spirit akin to that of the Vienna Circle.

2. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Enormonsly important in the philosophical articnlation of logical empiricism was Lndwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus, published in German and English in 1922. Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who had been born into a Jewish family in Austria, was first an engineer, became a mathematician, then worked on the foundations of mathematics and logic, and finally devoted himself to philosophy. In the years preceding the First World War he studied under Bertrand Russell at Cambridge, and his first book (the only one published in his lifetime) was largely inspired by Frege and Russell. His posthnmous Pbilosophical Investigations (1953) has a very different character, and it is obvious that the author of the Tractatus had abandoned many of his former ideas. These two works


have had very great influence-the former primarily on the development of logical empiricism, the latter on linguistic philosophy. This fact, however, does not justify situating Wittgenstein's thonght in either of these two currents, the less so because he rejected the logical empiricist interpretation of his own philosophy. We shall, then, omit any full account of his complex and controversial philosophy, which, as a whole, falls altogether outside the boundaries of positivism, and call attention merely to a few points that the founders of logical empiricism regarded as related to their own ideas.

To Vlittgenstein in the period of the Tractatus, the reality of sense perception consists of individual facts, and the meaning of any knowledge is reducible to descriptions of such facts, these descriptions being structural correspondents ("images") of them. The meaning or truth of every proposition is wholly determined by the individual statements that make it up, the sum total of which is equivalent to its meaning. There is no such thing as a priori knowledge, whether of facts or things, and bence logic-which is a science independent of empirical verification-consists of tautologies devoid of content. Logical positivism took over this division of all possible knowledge into two flasses (tautologies and statements of fact), a division that rules out the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. Language and thought refer only to elementary, "atomic" facts. We undetstand only what we can express, hence there is no thought that cannot be expressed, and there are no questions that cannot be solved, for it would not be possible to formulate meaningfully any such question. In this sense, according to the famous aphorism in the T ractaws, the limit, of my langnage are the limits of my world. And since the atomic facts are always contingent, i.e., the descriptions they consist of contain no features compelling us to assert them by virtue of a logical rule, our lmowledue of the world involves no necessity. The conse-

b

quellccs of these restrictions in reference to metaphysical ques-tions are obvious. We can ask whether a given fact belongs to

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

our world of experience, bnt we cannot ask meaningful questions concerning the characteristics of the world as a whole. Thus, it is meaningless to ask whether reality has a material nature, because it could be answered only on the basis of a specific experience of "materiality" as distinct from one of H no11_

materiality." As such an experience is inconceivable, the problem of realism cannot be rationally formulated. Radical denial of the meaningfulness of guestions concerning the world "as a whole" led Wittgenstein to the conviction that even statements of the type "The world coutains at least three objects" are meaningless. On the basis of the data that experience supplies, the difference between realism and solipsism not only cannot be defined, it cannot be formulated in words. Incidentally Wittgenstein believes-in this he is very nearly alone-that what solipsism asserts is right, but that it cannot be expressed. To express it, a categoIY such as the "I" would have to be invoked, and there is no such thing among the atomic facts: on close scrutiny the "1" shrinks to the size of a dot. The so-called "subject" is ungraspable, not just as an alleged "inside" of things different from them, but even as an "inner-world" object. Within the bonndaries of experience I can speak about "myself" ill reference to individnal facts, but when I try to go beyond their contents to ask about some indivisible "core" or permanent substratum of subjectivity unifying those data in an identical self, my questions become as meaningless as any other metaphysical question.

Language, moreover, which reproduces the structure of experiential facts in its statements, discloses (but does not express) something that hasically admits of no description. "What we cannot speak of we must be silent about," says the last aphorism in the Tractatus. Language is helpful since it can articulate knowledge of its own limits-on this score, linguistic tools have roughly the status of "reason" in Pascal's intellectualist view of the world-but this self-knowledge, so to speak, is an automatic contact with the ineffable, with that which will never be-


come an object of lmowledge (however important it may be in life). If it is to be a serious activity, philosophy cannot hope to play the part of theory; it is a variety of hnman behavior aiming at the clarification of scientific statements. (The latter observation was taken over by Schlick, according to whom philosophy's task is to clarify meanings, but the ultimate meanings of words can only be pointed to, not expressed in wordsthe contents are inexpressible-and hence philosophy is not a sum of asserrions, still less a "system," but a type of behavior that results in clarity of statement.)

In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein considerably reduces the reqnirements that meaningful statements have to meet, and in effect recognizes that all expressions containing words whose use is subjected to specific rules are meaningful; as for unequivocal definitions, he treats them as a basically utopian ideal. Because of the looseness of the rules of meaningfulness expounded in this work, it has been invoked by writers more concerned with how language functions than with specifying its components for scientific purposes, and they have deuied the usefulness of assigning unequivocal meanings to current words. Also, certain theologians find the new approach to meaningfulness helpful in validating questions within their sphere. This later phase of Wittgenstein's thought is even less closely related to positivism than the earlier one.

On the other hand, the Tractatus was an important conn'ibution to the new positivist program in radical respects. First, it reduced all meaningful non-analytic statements to descriptions of elementary facts. Second-a consequence of the preceding-it proposed a nominalist interpretation of scientific knowledge: every scientific theory is a function of individual statements descrihing the facts on which it is based. Third-another consequence of the first assumption-it dismissed metaphysics as meaningless, not only in respect to its assertions, but also in respect to its questions; at the same time, it neutralized the

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

concept of experience in the same sense as Avenarius. Fourth, it limited philosophy to the logical analysis of scientific language.

3· Scientific statements and metaphysics. Logical empiricism proper was not always so radical on the score of meaningfulness, especially not in connection with language. Carnap, basing himself on the theory of types, distinguished between different linguistic levels and, treating philosophy as a language that speaks about language, defined its task as that of investigating the conditions under which scientific language is syntactically correct as well as meaningful. Many logical empiricists at first identified meaningfulness with verifiability, i.e., they held that the conditions of meaningfulness are met only by those propositions in reference to which it is possible to state by what intersubjective methods they can be verified. This is concisely expressed in the well-known fonnula, "The meaning of a statement is the method of its verification," a formula directed not just against metaphysical systems, but against virtually all traditional philosophy. On closer examination, however, this rule involves difficulties. Obviously, it cannot refer to actual verification, i.e., does not assert that a statement is meaningful only when we have carried out tests establishing its logical validity, for in this case the same expression could turn from nonsense to meaningfnl statement overnight, with improvements in experimental technique. So the rule was restated: what it refers to is not actual verineation, but "basic" Of "theoretical," rather than "technical" verifiability. Yet here, too, closer scrutiny reveals difficulties. First, at what point may the process of verincation be regarded as completed, what kind of cognitive acts require no further justification-can be taken as definitive? Next, the nco-positivists began to look for an absolute epistemological starting point, undertaking to solve in their own way a problem with which philosophy had struggled for centuries. So arose the problem of "first statements," absolutely initial cognitive acts at the level of linguistic articulation. These were supposed to be "basic" or "protocol" sentences, i.e., descriptive of actual sense perceptions "with nothing added."


The proper meaning of such sentences, questions of their value and possibility, gave rise to a long debate into which we cannot go here. At one point, certain participants in this debate (Neurath, Carnap) could not avoid the conclusion that "basic" sentences are direct descriptions of the observer's own experience and hence introspective. Strictly speaking, then, they cannot be ascribed objective meaning: if meaningfulness is to be defined by the (more or less loosely conceived) logical reductibility of sentences to observational notations, a purely psychological interpretation of knowledge appears unavoidable. Other participants in the debate tried to show that "basic" sentences could he treated as accounts of physical observations, referring to the directly observable behavior of physical objects (without prejudging the latters' ontological status). Karl Popper went so far as to defend the thesis that hasic sentences are scientific conventions, that is, arbitrary assumptions necessary to avoid infinite regress in scientific demonstration. Others pointed out that absolutely basic sentences do not figure in scientific theories, and, like the conventionalists, spoke in favor of the thesis of the circular verifiability of theories. This doctrine amounted in effect to abandoning the empiricist position, for it presupposes that science never deals with elementary facts, so contains no absolutely basic sentences, and that the ultimate criterion for validating a hypothesis or accepting a given theory is the logical coherence of the existing system of senteuccs.

Another point at issue was the character of the logical relation that must obtain between actual scientific propositions and the "basic" sentences, if the former are to be regarded as properly verifiable, i.e., as meaningful statements. What, then, is verifiability? The rule identifying a statement's verifiability with the possibility of logically inferring from it a finite collection of "protocol" sentences was soon abandoned, for it hecame clear that in this sense the majority of scientific propositions would he unverifiahle, hence meaningless. Next, the rule was reformulated as follows: those statements are verifiable that can serve as

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

premises of "protocol" sentences, i.e., those from which we can infer predictions as to the observable behavior of physical objects. Then it turns out that the same "protocol" sentences can be inferred from several scientific propositions, and also, for instance, from a logical conjunction in which, next to a scientific proposition, we have a metaphysical proposition, even one that flagrantly violates the rules of meaningfulness. Consequently, this definition of verifiability would permit us to ascribe verifiability to arbitrary statements, and would not serve our purpose. This difficulty gave rise to various attempts to limit the definition and to formulate a concept of partial verifiability, such as might avoid these nndesirable consequences.

In the course of these discussions Popper advanced an idea that, though not novel in the history of modern science, was now formulated in all its generality with great clarity. This idea was that the criterion of the empirical character of statements (and hence of their meaningfulness) should be their "de~ibility," that is, the possibility of disproving them: only those "Statements are to be regarded as empirically founded that let us infer by what empirical methods they might be disproved. In other words, if we cannot say how our present world differs \ empirically from a world in which the given statement would be false, the statement is meaningless. If every conceivahle fact confirms a theory, the theory is obviously non-empirical. We readily see that such a view dismisses all metaphysical doctrines and religious beliefs as meaningless. When we ask how we can refute the assertion that God is mercifnl, we discover at once that there is no conceivahle way of doing so: every fact can easily be reconciled with God's mercifulness, and no fact conclusively contradicts it. According to Popper, this rule is of primary importance in scientific thinking and alters, as it were, the entire conditions of the pursuit of knowledge. It encourages the scientist to reflect on possible ways of disproving his own hypothesis, not just to look for facts that confirm it. It also urges him to eschew theories that every conceivable fact confirms.


According to the positivists, there is no lack of such theories in contemporary science. Some have criticized Freud's doctrine on this ground: it can assimilate every new fact, and so is utterly insensitive to facts contradicting it-in other words, it is non-empirical in the sense discnssed here. Ent it was soon pointed out that Popper's principle raises another difficulty: existential propositions, i.e., those that assert the existence of an object are obvionsly "undefeasible" in his sense, hence non-empirical. (We cannot addnce an observational sentence to refute the statement "There is the sun ll or "Elves and fairies exist," a1-thongh such statements are exclnded by other logical rnles.) A number of further attempts were made to state the rules of verifiability with greater precision, and discussion of these matters has by no means ended. Reichenbach has pointed out that it is necessary to refer to degrees of probability in defining the rules of verifiability. According to him, Hume long ago showed that a radical empiricist cannot make use of induction without inconsistency, for we have no way of validating indnction. To validate it inductively is to beg the question, and if the principle of induction is a synthetic judgment a priori, radical empiricism becomes untenable. Moreover, if induction is rnled out, all knowledge turns out to be impossible. Therefore we must recognize that we are entitled to predict events that never occurred on the basis of past events, bnt that assertions concerning the fntnre do not have the same degree of certainty as statements concerning the past. However, this view creates new difficnlties, and, as we said above, the whole problem is still nnder discnssion.

Apart from these varions solutions to the problem of verifiability, and apart from the continuing discussion, logical empiricism has been searching for ways to eradicate metaphysical judgments from human thonght. In the light of empiricist criticism, statements such as "God is Three Persons in One," "The world is material," "The ground of existence is will," or "The universal is contained in the particular," are not necessarily false, bnt simply are not statements, have no meaning that permits

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

inqniry into their trnth or falsity. Following Wittgenstein, the logical empiricists have held this thesis as one of the fundamental assumptions of their doctrine. All statements asserting something about the world "as a whole," all epistemological and ontological theories (whether realist, materialist, or snbjectivist), all doctrines containing general statements about, say, nniversal determinism or the fundamental snbject-object relation-all are meaningless, no one of them one whit "trner" than its negation.

The philosophical-or perhaps anti-philosophical-revolution that the logical empiricists claim to have brought about has consisted above all in this eliminating of psendo-questions, thoughts abont nothing at all. This is allegedly the most important accomplishment of their critique, wbich has shown (among mnch else) that very nearly the whole of earlier philosophy is made up of meaningless solutions to pseudo-problems. Carnap made a detailed analysis of Heidegger's statement, "Nothing nihilates," in order to show that it is purely verbal, devoid of empirical meaning. (Incidentally, this is the only sentence from existentialist philosophy the majority of contemporary positivists appear familiar with.) Indeed, most representatives of tins school are much stronger on logical studies than on historical studies; they have a low opinion of the results of previons philosophical thinking and are persuaded tbat the only valnable elements in philosophy are those that can be built np in the same way as the resnlts of natural science. Since all knowledge comes down to empirical statements and tantologies, philosophy has no tasks of its own apart from the logical analysis of langnage. Logic is not a collection of the laws of thought in· any psychological sense, but of rules of lingnistic nsage that are true (or binding, rather) by virtue of lingnistic convention. In themselves, they are devoid of content: they tell ns how to make use of symbols, have no object in view of their own. The logical empiricists have directed their criticism both against the Platonizing interpretation of mathematics and against psychological or associational theories; the majority have preferred


formalist conceptions of mathematics. Those who (like Reichenbach) ascribe an objective character to some parts of mathematics do so only in the sense earlier accepted by Mach: geometry, as a paft of mathematics, consists of analytic judgments, but there is also a geometry that may be regarded as paft of physics. The latter consists of judgments that have to be validated with the help of observation and measurement. Neither the latter nor the former, however, contains synthetic a priori

judgments. According to the neo-positivists, all earlier contribntions to

philosophy break down into problems that are purely verbal, hence meaningless, and problems solvable through meticulous analysis of the linguistic means used in formulating them. Hence all the investigations into the syntax, later into the semantic aspects of philosophical language. Logical empiricists were prominent among those who welcomed semantics enthusiastically as a panacea for the ills, not just of intellectual culture, but of human life in general. The promise semantics held out of doing away with doctrinal quarrels and antagonisms appealed to them, for they shared the conviction that these arise out of faulty use of language and that immense quantities of human energy are squandered in this way. Some philosophers of this school have held that metaphysical statements, though devoid of meaning, can perform expressive functions, may serve as outlet for certain emotions. They are to be tolerated so long as they claim no more ambitions statns, so long as those who make such statements do not imagine they are saying something about the world, or that their particular point of view can meaningfully be defended against other points of view.

4. The "physicizing" of science. The rule that defines the meaningfulness of sentences by the possibility of reducing them to contents referring to the physical behavior of bodies implies that all scientific propositions must-if they are to be valid-be translatable into the language of physics. This view, sometimes referred to as the "physicizing" part of the program,

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

was very popular with the founders of logical positivism. The language of physics was held to be universal, and only statements formulated in this language, or statements that Can be translated into it, were regarded as meaningful. However, in actual scientific practice this rule proved very difficult to observe consistently. In psychology it led to behaviorism, which in the opinion of this school is the only scientific psychology. The older introspective psychology is dismissed as a tissue of irresponsible fantasies concerning the "sonl" and "spiritnal" faculties. Behaviorism denies that psychological statements have any sense more or less than other statements about observable modes of hmnan behavior; in particular) statements about "inner" experiences are devoid of scientific meaning if they refer to something other than behavior (or an expression of feeling). In keeping with the most persistent phenomenalist tradition, positivism recognized a natnra! ally in behaviorist psychology, for it dispenses with the nnobservable, mysterious category of "consciousness" or "subjectivity." It is currently believed, for instance, that intelligence is a certain "property" of individuals, "expressed" in or knowable by means of tests. From the point of view of logical empiricism (also behaviori,,: psychology), intelligence is not an "occult" quality that "manifests" itself in test procedures: intelligence is precisely that which is studied by means of these procedures. The other definition tacitly assumes a non-scientific distinction between essence and appearance which is snpposedly a manifestation of the essence. Science cannot operate meaningfully with statements that refer to some reality other than the qualities accessible to observation.

Critics of the behaviorist interpretation have pointed out that it fails to carry out the "physicizing" program: it translates psychological statements into everyday language, not into the language of physics. The fact that positivists approve of behaviorism suggests that for all their claims that their purpose is to free psychology of metaphysical prejudices and give it a


scientific fonndation, they actually rely on the deceptive intelligibility of everyday langnage.

5. The humanities and the wotld of values. The "physicizing" program, despite its apparent simplicity, was soon found to involve great difficulties, especially in the fields of the social and historical sciences. When we try to translate the simplest terms nsed in the latter into the language of physics, their meanings turn out, more often than not, to be remote from current usage. According to the positivists, this shows that their previous usage had been faulty, bound up with "smuggled-in" metaphysical fictions. According to critics, however, nothing proves the humanistic meanings to be less "intelligible" than the physicizing translations. Terms such as "property," "authority," "binding law," etc. cannot be physicized without changing their meaning. The fact is, when they have been practiced in accordance with the positivist rules, the humane sciences have not managed to get beyond generalities.

Neurath attempted to draw up rules for an empirical sociology, to meet the requirements fornmlated by logical positivism. His project was based on the assumption that there are no differences in cognitive methods between the natural and the social sciences, especially no differences of the type claimed by the Dilthey school. According to Neurath, the social sciences do not deal with human intentions, experiences, aspirations, or "personalities," but solely with the behavior of human organisms. These sciences can and should discard such concepts as "consciousness" and its various derivatives, study observable regularities of human behavior, and ascertain measnrahle relationships within the various dimensions of this behavior. If we would once learn how to record invariable patterns of behavior and to discover the conditions governing their emergence, spread, and decline, we should be able to predict social phenomena no less effectively than natoral phenomena. Humanists, however, brand the program a pipe dream, pointing to the fact that the social sciences often deal with wholes, the behavior of which cannot

LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

possibly be deduced from physical laws. A great many sociological techniques have been developed for ascertaining relationships between human behavior patterns and the conditions of their occurrence, and positivist-minded sociologists have made considerable contributions along this line, but such techniques have still to snpplant theoretical reflection on social life. Although positivists condemn snch theoretical reflection as non-scientific, without it no verifiable social problems could so mnch as be formulated. At any rate, social phenomena are predictable only within very narrow limits, a fact that scarcely holds out very encouraging prospects for subjecting sociology to the positivist rules of knowledge.

Another target of positivist criticism has been the historiosophic systems. Karl Popper's two books, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957), constitote an all-out attack on "historicism," which in Popper's usage denotes an approach to social phenomena that defines the main task of the relevant sciences as historical prediction based on the discovery of historical laws, structllre, rhythms, etc. According to him, historical prediction is impossible, at least insofar as the conrse of history depends on the progress of knowledge (for if scientific discoveries were predictable, their contents would have to be known at the moment they were predicted). In particular, Popper criticizes "holistic" interpretations of social phenomena as "manifestations" of global structores irreducible to their constituent parts. Such interpretations, characteristic of Hegel and Marx, are associated with techniques of social action intended to bring about global revolutionary npheavals (holistic or utopian techniques) rather than real advances achievable by gradual, step-by-step reforms. An authentic holistic technique is impossible, for a "totality" -a sum of social features and relations-cannot be studied scientifically; science has to be selective, cannot produce a "holistic" historiography. According to Popper, historiosophic systems are both cognitively unproductive (because they deal with objects


that cannot be studied scientifically) and socially harmful (because they serve to justify totalitarian utopias).

As can be seen, the attitude of logical empiricism toward the social and historical sciences underwent one essential change between Neurath's EmpiTical Sociology and Popper's Poverty of Historicism. Hopes for an efficient technique of predicting social phenomena gave way to pessimistic fear of the consequences of alleged predictions, while real prediction came to be regarded as impossible. On the whole the empirical approach to social phenomena still remains in force, but fully positivist social science has not got beyond the programmatic stage-apart from numerous studies of the language of the social sciences. Some of these are valuable because they cast light on methods used in those sciences, bur none represents an actual carrying out of the positivist program for the social sciences.

The consequences of empiricism in axiology, more particularly in ethics, are obvious and have often been asserted by champions of this doctrine. Experience does not disclose the existence of a world of values or valuational qnalities that could serve as an empirical foundation for value jndgments. Consequently, the latter, being neither empirical nor tautological, are meaningless. Moore's thesis that moral predicates qualifying human behavior, though differing from descriptive predicates, are apprehended intuitively and are no less self-evident than sense perception was rejected by the neo-positivists. This school recognized Moore's distinction but denied the existence of a cognitive faculty specifically related to values. Valuations are neither true nor false, may at most be regarded as expressions of certain psychological states, may tnrn out to be meaningless exclamations. Despite the Socratic tradition, the so-called knowledge of values is not knowledge in any sense, and hence cannot be the object of controversy nor supply matter for rationally formulated questions. It is possible in ethics to argue rationally about whether given conclusions follow from given premises. Nothing prevents us from recognizing, for instance, that in-


ferences can be drawn from normative statements: the statement that one ought not to tell lies implies that one ou ght not to

praise a bad poem, even though written by a friend. It is also possible to look for empirical premises in order to prove or disprove that a situation described in a normative statement actually occurs in a given case. (For instance, we may ask whether corporal punishment in educational connections merely canses unnecessary pain or produces beneficial effects.) But it is impossible to argae rationally about whether something is a value or not-a non-instrumental, autonomous value, that is, something more than a means to an end. Ultimate valuational assumptions can only be arbitrary. Needless to say, a scientific sociology of manners and cnstoms, a history of ethical theories, and a psychology of morals are all perfectly possible, but not a scientific normative ethics. No science can tell us how we onght to behave, only what means will achieve a given end, and no science can define those ends, sanction anything as "good," condemn anything as "evil." Science is nentral in relation to the world of values, and this neutrality is basic, has nothing to do with the given stage of scientific development. Like metaphysical qnestions, questions referring to valnes are pseudo-qnestions.

6. Logical empiricism in Poland. We mentioned above that logical empiricism played an important part ill Polish philosophy in the period between the two world wars. Polish logical positivism or, as Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz called it, "logistic antirationalism," developed to a great extent independently of the Vienna Circle, thongh it had many contacts with it. The Polish positivist tradition goes back to some late eighteenth-century anti-Kantians. It gave rise to an important intellectnal movement in the last decades of the nineteenth century, but this movement played no essential part in the development of the Polish version of logical empiricism. The first generation of modern logicians mostly inclnded pnpils of Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) who, though not a positivist himself, trained and encouraged them in detailed analysis of philosophical language. Jan


Lukasiewicz's work, in turn, helped to arouse interest in symbolic logic. At an early date Poland became one of the most active centers of modern logical inquiry and has held this position to this day.

Among the pupils of Twardowski and founders of the socalled Lwow-vVarsaw school, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz was perhaps the most closely related to Vienna Circle tendencies. His purpose was to formulate a semantic version of various epistemological problems, such that these could be analyzed by logical means. His own view, which he defined as radical conventionalism, was based on the conviction that sentences that express our image of the world are determined by the conceptual apparatus used in formulating them. A conceptual apparatus is a language that in addition to a vocabulary and syntactic rules is defined by deductive, axiomatic, and empirical semantic rules. Such a language is "closed," that is, cannot be enriched without changing the meauing of all existing expressions; it is also cohesive; has no isolated parts, and all its expressions can be linked together in meaningful wboles. Two closed, cohesive languages contain reciprocally translatahle expressions only if they are accurate copies of each other in every respect. If even one single expression in one language has no equivalent in the other, the two langnages are totally untranslatable. Now, since our choice of conceptual apparatus is arbitrary, all statements (including empirical ones) that we are obliged to assert on the basis of one given apparatus can be rejected-recognized as meaningless on the basis of a different apparatus. In other words, no "facts" have a cognitively binding character in the sense of forcing us to assert or deny any statement, since onr image of the world is always determined by the language in which it is formulated. When we operate with one language, we have no way of asserting or denying statements expressed in another language. Later Ajdnkiewicz abandoned this interpretation, having realized that the conditions imposed on closed, cohesive langnoges cannot actnolly be met


even by the artificial languages of the dednctive sciences. He retained, however, the view characteristic of logical empiricism that the proper way to solve philosophical prohlems is to give them the form of semantic qnestions, which enables ns to determine what is meaningful in their content.

Tadeusz Kotarbinski (h. 1886) can he regarded as really belonging to this school only with reservations. Like the logical empiricists, he is a radical nominalist in all domains of thought and believes that the social and historical sciences, too, can he pursued without "hypostases," i.e., in such a way that all their statements are reducible to statements about things-the only entities to which the term "existence" can be properly applied. Kotarbinski is also related to the positivists by his conviction of the value of modern logical instrnments in settling epistemological questions, and by his over-all empiricist orientation. But his ureism," i.e., the view according to which every meaningful statement is a statement abont physical bodies, seems to go beyond the ontological nentrality characteristic of the positivists.

The Lwow-Warsaw school played an important part in the history of modern positivism thanks to Jan Lukasiewicz, creator of multivalent logics, and Alfred Tarski (b. 1901), who in a way validated the semantic conception of trnth and went beyond the pnrely syntactic approach to language. The majority of the philosophers belonging to this group are characterized by 0

considerably less extreme formnlation of the positivist standpoint than that of the Vienna Circle. The second generation of this school was as a rule less concerned with formulating overall programs and pursued detailed investigations in the fields of logic and the methodology of science; they are only partly dependent on the positivist view, bnt broadly related by their spirit of restraint, distrust of metaphysical solutions, and conviction as to the importance of lingnistic analysis.

7. Operational methodology. In the United States, where some of the founders of the Vienna Circle emigrated in the Hitler period, the influence of this philosophical style combined with


the pragmatist tradition, now shorn of its more paradoxical implications. Still earlier the influence of both currents can be discerned in the so-called "operational" methodology of science. P. W. Bridgman, author of The Logic of Modern Physics ( I 92 7 ), attempted to develop and apply to the methodology of the physical sciences the neo-positivist formula: the meaning of a sentence is the method by which it is verified. According to

him, the meaning of a word is determined hy the set of operations intended to ascertain whether the word in question refers to the given thing; the meaning of a sentence is redncible to the totality of the verifying operations. (This does not apply to "formal" propositions, i.e., to the tantologies of the deductive sciences, which are signs arranged according to syntactic rules.) This view implies, in the spirit of pragmatism, that truth is not independent of the operations by which it is ascertained. No statement can be ascribed the "characteristic" of truth without reference to the verifying operations. Physical magnitude is defined by the set of measuring operations, physical number by the operation of counting. But since the verifying operations may produce different results, varying with the given state of knowledge, the same statement may be trne or false, depending on the cognitive situation and the nature of the verifying operations. Operationalism was criticized on a number of scores, including the inconvenience of its consequences. For instance, one and the same magnitude or characteristic studied by different methods of inspection and measurement cannot be regarded as identical (since it is defined solely by these operations), and hence, for example, we are not entitled to say that we are dealing with the same characteristic when we test intelligence by two different methods, nor that we are dealing with the same magnitude when we use two different metbods of measurement to compute astronomical distances. Moreover this view implies that scientific assertions refer, strictly speaking, to our experimental operations, not to the things supposed to be the objects of the experiment. However, operationalism raised one


important methodological problem which has proved important to several sciences: What conditions have to be fulfilled in order

" to make sure that applying different methods does not alter the object investigated? Or, on what basis do we assert that we are dealing with the same object, when we use different methods to

investigate it? In all the historical sciences, and also in experimental psychology, this question turns up and it cannot always be easily answered. Operationalism also tackled other questions connected with the extent to which an object of empirical study is dependent on the instruments used. On this score, the partisans of this view benefited from older conventionalist analyses, which had shown that science contains no "elementary" sentenceS1 and that scientific theories are not based merely on collections of facts, but that the truth of scientific statements depends on the coherence of the system to which they belong and, more importantly, that a given set of facts may be accounted for by two incompatible interpretations, between which it is impossible to choose on the basis of experiment.

Another attempt inspired by both logical empiricism and pragmatism is Charles \,y. Morris's theory of signs. This theory is characterized by an empiricist approach and the use of symbolic logic; it draws epistemological conseqnences from the practical, utilitarian function of signs in interhnman communication. In addition to its syntactic and semantic aspects, the pragmatic aspect of language-i.e., its expressive instrumental functions-must be the object of philosophical analysis within the domain of so-called meta-science. These investigations deal with specific extra-intellectual situations involving the use of scientific symbols, and include institutional situations important in the social life of science. Logical analysis of the legitimacy of scientific procedures and existing theoretical structures does not of itself adequately account for the cognitive situation in which scientific thinking takes place. Thus, Morris attempted to reintroduce the genetic approach into epistemology, an approach that the positivist program had ruled out.


8. Ideological aspects. Logical empiricism has played a very great role in the inteUecmal culture of our day but has failed to attain the aims that mattered most to it. While the positivists were proclaiming the end "once and for all" of unverifiable metaphysical systems and speculative philosophy in general, new doctrines in flagrant contradiction to these ideals have spruug up one after the other. Positivists see no more in this development than evidence of humau smpidity, not any reflection on themselves. They are not seriously interested in finding out why the social results of their work are so insignificant, nor why people continue to ask questions that science cannot answer. At all events it is doubtful, in the light of experience, that mankind is about to give universal recognition to the kind of rationalism championed by the positivists.

For all that, the positivist critique of metaphysics has not been entirely fruitless. Under its influence, most people have come to believe that any and every effort to transform epistemological or ontological assumptions into scientific assertions in the sense ascribed to statements of experimental or dednctive science is doomed to failure. Positivism has contribnted a great deal to a change in philosophy's assessment of its own cognitive stams. Those who pursue investigations in the fields of ontology, theoretical epistemology, historiography, and anthropology tend to an ever increasing extent to believe that their work is inseparable from interpretations reflecting the pressure of valuational attitudes and opinions. In other words, there is monnting awareness that philosophy is not in the same epistemological simation as science, that it cannot lay claim to scientific, technologically applicable, empirically verifiable knowledge, but that it aims at a more meaningful image of the world-in the humanistic, not the semantic sense of "meaningful." This applies not only to ontological and epistemological reflection, but to the historical or humanistic disciplines, which the positivists lump together with metaphysics.

Today we are witnessing the gradual decline of logical


empiricism as a distinct philosophical school. Its adherents, in conformity with their own program, most often direct their interest to particular diSciplines, mainly logic and methodology, and to qnestions that have been largely nentralized philosophically. The area of problems connected with the testability of hypotheses, the legitimacy of induction, the empirical meaning of scientific terms, etc., has clearly continued to inspire reflection and controversy. However, these preoccupations do not constitute a distinct philosophical (or anti-philosophical) "school"-they have simply become a universally recognized discipline that can to some extent be practiced independently of one's philosophical preferences. Symbolic logic has almost entirely emancipated itself from the neo-positivist cognitive program, and is practiced even by men who profess metaphysical beliefs. Nor, for instance, does the dispute between formal and psychological theories of meaning involve doctrinal commitment to logical empiricism. The influence of philosophical attitudes upon scientific work in logic or semantics is not essentially different from their inflnence on other, older branches of knowledge. Use of rules of verifiability in empirical sociology is no more linked with positivism than is use of snch rules in any other field of knowledge, though there also exists a positivist approach to sociology, which is logically independent of empirical investigation and programmatically rules out any theory that cannot meet the rigorous requirements of experimental science.

It is not within our competence to answer the question whether and to what extent logical empiricists have influenced the actnal development of science. Be that as it may, their reBections on methodology were never opposed until attempts were made to proclaim logical empiricism the only kind of philosophy worth serious attention.

The assumptions d logical empiricism have been criticized from the most various points of view. We shall confine ourselves to a few essential questions.

One target of criticism has been the criterion of "basic" as


distinguished from "technical" verifiability. This is a fundamental point of the doctrine, because it prejudges the question whether it is at all possible to formulate a usable criterion of scientific meaningfulness. Critics point out that the positivists define "basic" verifiability as conformity with certain rules of logical syntax, but in formulating thcse rules they appeal to the verifiability of expressions, thus begging the question.

However, the positivists have had an especially hard time defending the principle of verifiability itself as a criterion of meaningfulness. What is the rule of verifiability, critics asked. Since it is neither an empirical nor an analytic statement, it must be a metaphysical one in the positivists' own "bad" sense. In other words, the doctrine of logical empiricism has a metaphysical thesis at its very fonndation, and hence cannot lay claim to being more scientific than any other doctrine. Positivists reply that the principle in question is not a thesis but a definition, and hence need not meet the conditions to which scientific assertions are subject.

However, this question-which deserves special attention because it is central to the doctrine-is not elucidated by this reply. The grounds are merely shifted. It is perfectly proper to ask what reasons oblige ns to accept such a definition of meaningfulness. In the history of logical empiricism, verifiability has been defined in a great many, more or less rigorous ways; depending on the formulation, the boundaries of legitimate intellectual endeavor have been shifted now this way, now that, and what was called "scientific" according to one definition did not deserve the name according to another. What were the reasons behind so many shifting proclamations as to what deserves the name of knowledge, what not? And if such declarations are purely arbitrary, then what practical considerations justify them?

There is an answer to these objections, too. For it is possible to formulate a rule tacitly observed in such analyses, according to which only those assertions will be regarded as cognitive or


scientific that are or may become helpful to mankind's practical activity-not in the sense of any sort of influence on this activity (for even the most fanciful metaphysics may influence human behavior), hur in the sense that such assertions imply the actual effectiveness of certain modes of behavior. This rnle turns out to involve great difficulties when we try to formulate it in a way that enables us to decide in every particular case whether we afe dealing with an "operational" statement or one of no consequence. Bur even if we succeeded in formulating it in the desired way, the question of whether the ultimate decision has an arbitrary valuational character would not be got rid of. For it is easy to see that to define the efficiency or technical "operativeness" of staterrlents as the measure of their meaningfulness, admissibility, or cognitive value is to make a valuational decision within a specific cultural context. The latter may be dominant at the time the decision is made, but it cannot pretend to possess absolnte and transcendental value over all other cultural contexts. We may recognize that "value" is that which increases the store of energy available to mankind for its use, but we cannot maintain that such a rule does not involve a decision within the hierarchy of values. Thus, this whole antimetaphysical doctrine with its theory of meaningful statements turns out to rest upon a given system of valuation, as relative and as closely bound up with a specific cultural background as any other.

It is obvious, for instance, that the accounts of mystical states reported by an individual convinced he has had personal contact with the godhead are not "scientific" in the current sense of the term. But we cannot decide whether they are meaningful or have cognitive "value" before defining what we call meaningful. If the area of meaningfulness is defined by the more or less freely formulated rules applied in natnral science, or by the rule of operativeness, or by technological applicahility, it is clear that the record of those mystical experiences will be meaningless. However, such a rule is merely one of a number


of possible expressions of the traditional positivist attitude, which recognizes only those human efforts measurable by utilitarian success and ascribes the dignity of knowledge only to that with which "you can do something." In the light of such an attitude all metaphysical statements are obvionsly inconsequential, for from statements such as "God is Three Persons in One" or "Matter is the foundation of Being,') no inference can be drawn that would increase any kind of technical efficiency. It is permissible to take such an attitude, but it is illegitimate to assert that it is anything more than an attitude, that is, a certain valuational perspective within which we place am environment. More particularly, we are not entitled to assert-it would, moreover, be contrary to other fundamental positivist assumptions-that this attitude represents non-relative valnes, something of value independent of human history, human needs, psychological dispositions, logically arbitrary decisions. That which we decide to recognize as cognitively valuable or that to which we agree to apply the term "knowledge" is logically arbitrary and historically determined by the culture within which such decisions are made.

Logical empiricism, then, is the product of a specific culture, one in which technological efficiency is rcgarded as the highest value, the culture we usually call "technocratic." It is a technocratic ideology in the mystifying guise of an anti-ideological, scientific view of the world, pnrgedof value judgments. The fact that contemporary positivism is unable to grasp its own relativity and dependence on specific culmral values is perhaps of no special importance: after all, the same is trne of all ideologies, which assume that their own values are absolute in contradistinction to all others, and by the same token represent themselves as free of ideological elements, solely concerned with efficient intellectual operation. There is still another reason why this cannot be an objection. A certain degree of blindness as to the absoluteness of one's own values may be indispensable to extract the valnable qnalities from the world, the qnalities


whose value is believed to be the highest. It is possible that in order to realize one's values one must have faith in their exclnsive character. Radical historical skepticism discourages practical action. Indeed, contemporary positivism is an attempt to overcome historicism once and for all: it separates all epistemological questions from genetic questions and attempts to formulate rules governing the use of words independently of the conditions under which they came into being. This is why the elimination of genetic questions from the theory of knowledge, and exclnsive concentration on the logical validity of thinking-the features that distinguish logical empiricism from empiriocriticism-are fundamental points of this program. Most positivists believe that science and human thinking generally can be completely nentralized from a philosophic point of view, and that within the area of experience so neutralized, to which no existential determinations are ascribed, "the scientific view" fulfills the same conditions as Husserl's transcendental ego, i.e., makes the criteria of the correctness of knowledge completely independent of the cnltural, historical, psychological, and biological conditions uuder which this knowledge is achieved. Once ontology has been neutralized, we have at our disposal an absolute observational standpoint. As a result, logical empiricism is an optimistic philosophy, for it rejects by definition the possibility of insoluble problems and rules out the agnostic attimde (anything of which we might say ignorabimus cannot be formulated as a question). It is an act of emancipation from troublesome philosophical qnestions, which it denounces in advance as fictitious; it also frees ns of the need to study history, which-since any philosophy worthy of the name must be cumulative in character-must appear to those professing this doctrine as a succession of barren, futile efforts, basically unintelligihle as to results, only very occasionally illuminated by a ray of common sense. The judgments passed by positivists on the philosophical systems of the past as well as on contemporary metaphysical specnlation usually have the character of summary


condemnations; they are not based on study of the condemned doctrines, hnt on ridiculing statements torn ant of context. This will he clear to anyone who has read works hy Chwistek, Reichenbach, Carnap, A yer, and others.

In one respect, however, the positivists do give voice to the ideological intentions that inspire their program, althongh they do not relate their philosophical standpoint to them. All of them have been convinced that their program is eminently educational: it is a call to tolerance, moderation, restraint, and responsibility for one's own words. Politically, the majority of logical empiricists have heen close to the Social Democrat position and favor parliamentary democracy; they have been resolutely hostile to fascist and racist doctrines, and for the most part also dislike communism. They have not, however, been liberals in the traditional historical sense of the term, i.e., they have not professed social Darwinism or Spencer's social philosophy. They represent a humanitarian protest against a world entangled in bloody conflicts, and are convinced that spreading the so-called scientific attitude is an effective antidote to the madness of the ideologists. "The concept of 'truth' as something dependent upon facts largely outside hnman control has been one of the ways in which philosophy has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When the check npol1 pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a cel·tain madness-the intoxication of power-which invaded philosophy with Fichte, and to which modern men, whether philosophers 01' not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest threat of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contrihutes to it, is increasing the danger of vast social disaster." (Bertrand Rnssell)

This declaration is not exceptional. At least to some extent the positivists are aware of the extra-cognitive fnnctions their philosophy performs and they approve of these. In line with Rnssell's words, these functions mnst above all consist in accnstoming the human mind to accept the conmaints of publicly


controllable circumstances where any and all convictions are concerned. If such an attitude spread, the beneficial effects of scientism would he m;nifest at once: controversies to which scientific meaning cannot be ascribed wonld disappear, and with them would go all conflicts, persecutions, and acts of intolerance stemming from such controversies. However, faith in the therapentic power of the positivist ideology implies certain assumptions. It is possible to assume that submissiveness to ideological pressures and fanaticisms is merely a kind of error or ignorance, that it derives from rashly ascribing meaning to sentences that in fact are similar to real questions only in grammatical structure, and admit of no real answers. Such an assumption, which tacitly constrncts a model of a perfectly rational "human nature" capable of evil solely because of defective thinking, is of course too naive to figure in the positivist program, were it only by implication. We may imagine another, less extreme assumption that might suffice to jnstify the positivist hopes, namely that the pressure of rationalism in the sense stated above (rationalism as a rnle recommending that we regard the degree to which a statement is justified as the measure of the force of conviction with which it is asserted-in accordance with Locke's saying) may be strong enough to increase the probability at least of doing away with fanatic and intolerant attitudes, and this thanks to gradually increasing awareness that all human convictions have a coefficient of uncertainty. Such a view does not necessarily imply the belief that human hehavior is completely determined by the given state of knowledge, but only the belief that human nature includes features favorable to development in the direction of increasing rationality. This latter assumption is not as flagrantly naive as the pl'evious one, but it would seem hard to build upon it hopes for the success of the positivist program until Olle has formed an opinion as to the real sources of violent ideological conflict and tbe "right" to intolerance a given model of truth carries with it. If, as we have good reason to think, ideological conflicts are the intellectual

206 THE ALIENATION OF RFASON

forms assumed by conflicts of interest not in themselves purely ideological, then hope for the effectiveness of scientistic therapies has no secure fonndation. We should rather suppose that ideologies must be fought by ideological means, not by appeals to restraint in the matter of conviction or to silence in the face of questions that do not meet the conditions of meaningfulness elaborated by the logical syntax of langnage.

In one respect, however, the positivist program has a value that can hardly be questioned. Although the expectation that it can serve as an effective antidote to social dangers stemming from the most various ideological conflicts seems utopian, we are today in a better position than ever before, thanks to more exact definitions of the scientific attitude and the scientific admissibility of assertions, to counteract the ideological misuse of science. In other words, ability to give a relatively good definition of the boundaries of scientific validity-an ability developed largely thanks to the positivists-is of great importance when we must criticize the claims of docttinaires who invoke the authority of science in suppott of their slogans. The most glaring example is the attempts that have been made to justify racism on the basis of anthropology. The possibility of demonstrating the hopelessness of such undertaldngs is not without importance, although it is clear that it cannot decisively influence the outcome of social conflicts. The sheer rigor of the positivist rules has awakened intellectuals to their own responsibilities, and in my opinion have been of practical aid in counteracting attempts to blur the boundaries between the position of the scientist and the obligations of the believer. Precisely because they add up to a kind of scientific ethics, these rules have never lost their timeliness.

Conclusion

The pnrpose of this book has been to present a few doctrines important in tbe history of positivism and to sbow tbat each of them is an aspect of the cultural background out of which it. arose. Each phase of positivist thought is a specific variation of the dominant intellectual style. At the same time, however, a diachronic continuity is clearly disclosed when we compare successive versions of positivism; thanks to this continuity the idea of treating the history of positivism as a distinct whole is meaningful. In the first chapter we tried to characterize (though this inevitably involved a certain degree of arbitrariness) the thematic features of this whole. This leads to the question whether positivism also discloses cnltural features justifying its treatment as a distinctive whole, or whether we are dealing with a number of traditional philosophical themes that were in each case adapted to the needs of a given period.

I hesitate to give a clear-cut answer to tbis question, for it involves certain difficult historiosophic decisions. The question is all the more vexatious because the meaning the positivists themselves ascribe to their anti-metaphysical bias has been interpreted, as we have seen, in various ways. This is best illustrated by comparing the rules given by \Vittgenstein with those given by Carnap. It is one thing to say "What we cannot speak of we must be silent about," something else again to say that metaphysics should be neated like poetry. After all, poetry is not silence, for all that it cannot be called "true" or "false" in the

208 CONCLUSION

sClnan6c sense. Wittgenstein's rule urges us to banish whatever

cannot be expressed as a logical sentence from our image of the world, more generally from all intellectual concern, Carnap's merely warns us to distinguish betweeo meaniugful and unverifiable statements, to treat the latter as purely expressive or lyrical utterances; he urges ns not to confuse something that merely expresses with something that also has meaning, and hence to refrain from representing' the en10tional gestures involved in metaphysical, religious, Of valuational verbalizations as anthentic convictions whose rightness or wrongness it is possible to dispute, When the anti-metaphysical prohibition goes no farther than a definition of knowledge that automatically gives extra-scientific status to philosophical assertions, the practice of metaphysics becomes, so to speak, legal according to positivism, so long as we do not ascribe so-called cognitive valne to such reflections, In this case, positivism cannot, strictly speaking, fulfill the ideological tasks mentioned at the end of the preceding chapter; that is, it cannot, if it is to be consistent, have a destructive effect on ideological attitudes, it can only deny them scientific justification, trnth or falsity in the scientific sense,

The majority of positivists are strongly inclined to follow Wittgenstein's more radical rule: they do not simply reject the cognitive claims of metaphysics, they refuse it any recognition whatever. The second, more moderate version is also represented, however, and according to it a metaphysics that makes no scientific claims is legitimate, Philosophers who, like Jaspers, do not look upon philosophy as a type of knowledge but only as an attempt to elucidate Existenz, or even as an appeal to others to make such an attempt, do not transgress the positivist code, The latter attitude is nearly universal in present-day existentialist phenomenOlogy, Awareness of fundamental differences between "investigation'? and "refiectiol1 j " between scientific "accuracy"

and philosophic "precision," between "problems" and "questioning" or "mystery" is expressed by all existentialist philosophers, Heidegger as well as Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel.

CONCLUSION 209

More than that, the newest theological tendencies, particularly the Protestant ones, take cognizance of the positivist critique, and their interpretations of the world meet its requirements, at least those of its morc moderate formulation, They do not try to prove that the theological conception of the world is a description of facts, a legitimate deduction, or a construction of hypotheses; they (Paul Tillich, John Hick) recognize that it has interpretative functions thanks to which the facts take on special meaning as constituents of a purposeful order organized by Providence, According to them, this kind of non-empirical meaningfUlness is like other common-sense interpretations that are independent of theology, such as the realist view of the physical world.

Other writers make use of the more relaxed rules of meaningfulness in Wittgenstein's later works, and argue that the rules governing the use of theological terms are sufficiently defined to meet the conditions of meaningfulness no less completely than empirical terms, The last-mentioned kind of apologetics goes back to views that assign equal cognitive status to science and metaphysics, and thus violate even the moderate positivist injunctions, The former kind, however, may be regarded as marking an essential change in attitude, and implies partial agreement with positivist criticisms, This attitude brings to mind Pascal, who defended the Christian religion while subscribing to the rational cdtique of Scholasticism and recognizing its results as irreversible; therefore he resorted to practical arguments trying to persuade others that they must accept beliefs that he himself agreed cannot be proved on rational grounds,

If the positivist slogans advanced over and over again for a few centuries could be reduced to this tempered version of the anti-metaphysical program, positivism would merely express science's continually renewed attempt to constitute itself, differentiating itself in turn from theology, religion, politics, and art; it would be a natural secretion of science, its growing awareness of its own irreducible position in social life, The

210 CONCLUSION

radical verSlOn has an entirely different cultural meaning. It is an attempt to consolidate science as a self-sufficient activity, which exhausts all the possible ways of appropriating the world intellectually. In this radical positivist view, the realities of the world-which can, of course, be interpreted by natural science, but which are in addition an object of man's "existential curjosity," a source of fear or disquiet, an occasion for commitment or rejection-if they are to be encompassed by reflection and expressed in words, can be reduced to their empirical properties. Suffering, death, ideological conflict, social clashes, antithetical values of any kind-all are declared out of bounds, matters we can only be silent about, in obedience to the

.. principle of verifiability. Positivism so understood is an act of )\

escape from commitments, an escape masked as a definition of knowledge, invalidating all such matters as mere figments of the imagination stemming from intellectual laziness. Positivism in this sense is the escapist's design for living, a life volnntarily cut off from participation in anything that cannot be correctly formulated. Tbe language it imposes exempts us from the duty of speaking up in life's most important conflicts, encases us in a kind of armor of indifference to the ineffabilia mundi, the indescribable qualitative data of experience.

What I am particularly concerned with, however, is to bring out a certain interpretative ambignity or, perhaps, a certain hard-to-trace bonndary line separating two possible interpretations of the positivist assnmptions. I mentioned earlier the scientistic ideology that would prescribe a kind of intellectnal discipline as a preventative of arbitrary thinking. In the words of Bertrand Rnssell qnoted earlier, such a discipline imposes humility on the human mind and subjects it to facts. And yet, whether this ideological formnla can be vindicated depends on whether we can free the positivist code of dangers involved in the pragmatic interpretation of truth-in other words, on whether we can renounce metaphysics irrevocably, without

CONCLUSION 2II

leaving room for its justiiication, not on the ground of its "truth" but of its "utility."

Let me give a simple illnstration. Stanislaw Brzozowski, commenting on Avenarius's philosophy in Ideas, pictured it as an ideology of despair, a dramatic confession by the philosopher that the true, the good, and the beautiful are not "elements" of experience but "characters." Unlinked to experienc,? in any oneto-one correspondence, they are rooted in socially conditioned modifications of experience, and in every case are "someone's" trnth, good, or beauty; what is regarded as true or false, good or evil, is determined by varions circumstances connected with the ecological situation of the organism; truth is an attitude just like recognition of a given experiential complex as pleasant or nnpleasant.

According to Brzozowski, this epistemology conceals a tragic renunciation of human pride, which A venarius does not state explicitly becanse to do so wonld be incompatible with his ascetic style. Irrational external circnmstances determine what we are supposed to regard as the true or the good; cognitive values have been reduced to the level of ephemeral, changeable experiences of pleasnre or pain, which cannot be the object of argnmentation. Reduced to a biological reaction, the world of moral values collapses along with the alleged eternity, "objectivity," or autonomy of aesthetic values. On this score the note of resignation in Avenarius's philosophy coincides with Nietzsche's nihilism; with this difference, however, that in the face of the destruction of all traditional values, Avenarius does not attempt to create his own scale of values, but is content to lay bare the critical point human self -knowledge has reached.

It might be said that this is not an interpretation of positivism but rather of natnralism or pragmatism, more generally of any doctrine that programmatically reduces the acconnt of cognitive fnnctions to an acconnt of biological behavior, and thns makes pointless any question concerning "truth" in the usnal sense. This was exactly how Husser! interpreted nineteenth-century

212 CONCLUSION

positivism, however. He, too, saw it as symptomatic of cultural crisis, as a theory that reduces human life to animal forms of appropriating the world, and that rules out all possibility of ever encountering truth. This was why he set out in search of certain knowledge; the purpose of his transcendental reduction is to rediscover the irreducibly primitive domain lost sight of by positivists and evolutionists, where doubt is impossible when the content of experience no longer depends on specific biologicalor historical situations. Thus Husserl interpreted evolurionist and biology-oriented positivism in the same sense as Brzozowski, although Husser!, less sensitive to the non-philosophical causes of the crisis, belicved it could be overcome by philosophical means, and devoted his lifelong labors to this task.

The question arises: Is the whole evolutionist current of positivism, the reduction of knowledge to a biological instrument of adaptation, touched off by the Darwinian revolution but already rooted in Hume's critique, merely one variant of positivist thought-a modification, an aberration, a deviation, perhaps an accident? Or could it be that the constitutive, the essential core of positivism contains something that Jeads inevitably to such biological relativization, for all that one and another variety of positivism fail to draw this dangerous consequence?

It is well known, of course, thnt some versions of positivism, especially logical empiricism, are not concerned with the genetic conditions of knowledge and concentrate their efforts on analyzing the procedures and results of science. This version of positivism never asks what are the origin and the use of metaphysical beliefs, bur defines valid cognition in such a way as to

rule out metaphysical investigation. It also defines the conditions of legitimate experience, rejecting or ruling out questions concerning its ontological status. Tarski's legalization of the semantic notion of truth, though important in the history of logical empiricism, does not change this situation, for it refers to the relation obtaining between linguistic signs and elements of ex-

CONCLUSION 21 3

perience and docs not prejudge or even raise the question concerning the metaphysical meaning of experience itself.

At the same time such philosophical neutralizing of experience does not make the question concerning its origin meaningless. What follows from it is merely that assertions that imply a causal relation between cognitive contents and a "thing in itself" or a "spiritual substance" are lllcaningless. Therefore, if the question is nonetheless put, the only possible positivist answer to it is the naturalistic one: knowledge is biological behavior. Such an answer implies the denial of truth in any transcendental sense and paralyzes all possible faith in experience or reason concei ved of as capable of disclosing to us something of "the world's qualities." All contemporary positivists are convinced that valuational predicates have no experiential counterparts; as for predicates characterizing logical values ("true," "false"), they are supposed to refer not to things but only to sentences, and hence their situation appears different from the others, for bere these predicates are inapplicable (one cannot ask: are things truly true?).

This, however, is merely a verbal distinction: the traditional philosophic question concerning the anthenticity or the limits of authenticity of knowledge is not nullified by the limited applicability of tbe adjective "tnJe." From the positivist standpoint, this question requires certain distinguos. There are ways-not perfect, but fairly effective ways-of distinguishing between knowledge and error within the limits of compelling experience, but any question referring to the totality of experience is meaningless. In other words: the epistemological problem in the strict sense cannot be solved, and hence (or because of this) it is not a problem. Since it refers to the object of knowledge as a whole, i.e., refers to "all," it is a metaphysical problem ill the positivist sense of the term.

This is why, according to the canons of this philosophy, genetic questions concerning knowledge can be formulated only as psychological questions; in contradistinction to the illusions of

214 CONCLUSION

"correce' perception, we always reduce ((correctness" to agreement among many human subjects as to their perceptions, and we cannot go beyond this ontologically neutral area. Every answer to the question concerning the reasons for snch intersnbjective agreement ("Why do we agree on a great number of perceptions''') must in the end refer to characteristics common to all members of the human species. The moment genetic questions make their appearance, posidvist naturalism is transformed into a biological interpretation of knowledge and cannot avoid snch relativization. This makes it possible to preserve the strict rules governing the use of the terms "true" and "false," but they must now refer to the human species; a considerable degree of invariability is ascribed to truth but its transcendental meaning is denied.

Many contemporary positivists reject this consequence and make use of logical values as though they had a transcendental meaning, but the pragmatist interpretation lies in wait for those who are less restrained in their questioning. In this case restraint does not reflect positivist radicalism, but a halfhearted positivist attitude. The least restrained positivist-Avenarius-is the most radical. His neutralizing of experience is at the same time liquidation of the fictitious "inner essence" withiu which the "outside" world supposedly manifests, discloses, or subjectivizes itself. By the same token the subject-object relation becomes the relation "nervous system-environment," and the whole epistemological prohlem becomes biological, while the value "truth" is only a particnlar biological instance of how the human species interprets its experiences.

The idea I should like to formulate as a result of these reflections is as follows. Positivism, when it is radical, renounces the transcendental meaning of truth and reduces logical values to features of biological behavior. The rejection of the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori-the fundamental act constituting positivism as a doctrine-can be identified with the reduction of all knowledge to biological responses; induction is merely one

CONCLUSION 21 5

form of the conditioned reflex, and to ask, Under what conditions is induction legitimate? is to ask, Under what conditions is the acquisition of a given reflex biologically advantageous? All so-called generalizing fnnctions and the formulating of scientific hypotheses serve merely to increase or improve our store of conditioned reflexes, and there are no such things as necessary truths, i.e., truths that, according to the old metaphysicians, could tell us what the world "mnst be," rather than what it in fact is. (Needless to say, the very question concerning "necessary" features of the world is meaningless from the positivist viewpoint.) According to Mach's theory, science is an extension of animal experience and has no other meaning than the totality of experiences on which it is based; but in contrast to animal empiricism it operates with a system of shorthand notations thanks to which connections between the phenomena we discover can be handed down to posterity. TIllS is a distinctive characteristic of the hnman species, wlllch enahles it to benefit from past intellectual and technological achievements.

Now a qnestion arises that positivists rarely ask themselves and that cannot really concern them: How can we account for the pecnliar fact that over many centuries human thought has ascribed to "Reason" the ability to discover "necessary" featnres in the world, and for so long a time failed to see that these feamres are figments of the imagination? Whence comes tIlls desire for a "metaphysical certainty" that can be gratified only fictitionsly, by an illusory, purely sentimental feeling of certainty?

Positivists confronted with questions of this kind are satisfied to give a purely epistemological answer: like all allegedly metaphysical riddles, the whole problem of necessary trnths results from the abuse of words, from grammatical inertia (hypostatizing abstract terms, substantializing verbs and adjectives, etc.Hobhes said the last word on this subject). In short, according to the positivists, we are dealing with an error. We shall not

ZI6 CONCLUSION

inquire here whether it really is an error. We shall confine ourselves, in conclusion, to the following observations:

If non-analytic knowledge is only the sum total of the individual experiences on which it is based and man's cognitive functions are distinguished only by his ability to record experiences, store them, and hand them down to posterity, then his stubborn aspiration to "necessary" knowledge must obviously be dismissed as a futile longing for a non-existent epistemological paradise. The enormous efforts made in the history of culmre to discover this paradise were wholly chimericaL Nonetheless the vast amounts of energy squandered in these explorations and the extraordinary tenacity with which they were carried on are worth pondering, all the more because the explorers were perfectly aware of the technological inconsequence of their efforts. After all, what seventeenth-century writers called "moral certainty" -i.e., conditions under which we may recognize the truth of a giveu judgment although our reasons for doing so have no ahsolute character-is entirely snfficient in scientific thought. From the point of view of applied knowledge, the desire for an epistemological absolute, i.e., "metaphysical certainty," is fruitless, and those in quest of this certainty were perfectly aware of the fact. And yet, we repeat, philosophy has never given up its attempt to constitute an autonomous "Reason," independent of technological applications and irreducible to purely recording functions.

Even if this attempt could be accounted for by the mere misuse of words (which seems highly unlikely), the very fact that it has been made again and again would be evidence of some sort of intellectual degeneracy in the human species. For how else can we interpret these persistent yet fruitless efforts? What gave rise to this orgy or intellectual debauch, which has been practiced for so many centuries and is still being practiced? Ought we not to suspect that the "Reason" that aspired to make itself independent of empirical data and to discover its own domain is some sort of cancerous tissue that has lost interest in

CONCLUSION

its proper, its biologically useful, instrumental mission, and has kept on growing at the expense of genuine vital needs? What else can be the meaning of the assertion that we are dealing with an error, a mistake, an abuse or misuse of words?

If it is true that the quest for "metaphysical certainty" is by definition cognitively fruitless (and it is certainly biologically fruitless, at least in the sense that it does not increase the technological effectiveness of the species), we are compelled to conclude that man's intellectual life is evidence of his biological decadence-a conclusion that accords with the extremer versions of the so-called philosophy of life.

Obviously, another hypothesis is possible. We may imagine that man's specifically "rational" life-i.e., his effotts to establish the autonomy of "reason"-is evidence of man's participation in another existential order than the one in which his body and animal needs participate. Then everything that is scientifically fruitful, and hence technologically useful, everything that can in one way or another be reduced to articulated conditioned reflexes, would belong among the biological functions, modified only by inherited elements-in accordance with Hume and Mach. On the other hand, everything that stems from other efforts and interests, all aspirations to "transcendental" knowledge, we would be obliged to regard as the result of our participation in some non-animal world, in chronic opposition to the other. In accordance with Bergson's doctrine, scientific and analytic intelligence would be a functional extension of organic efficiency, while autonomous "Reason" (as the faculty of non-discursive intuition or of discovering metaphysical truth) would not be an extension or surface layer or instrument of this organic efficiency, but an antagonistic power. In other words, we would he compelled to assume that our biological life and our metaphysical explorations spring from two incompatible and even hostile existential sources, or, to put it concisely, that the physical world is a kind of malicious joke, a trick played on us by some god or demon, while we, the victims of this joke,

218 CONCLUSION

suffer all the consequences of simultaneously and inevitably belonging to hostile worlds, the consequences of dual citizenship in two countries at odds with each other in a state of protracted warfare. This is roughly the Manichaean doctrine, which can perfectly well be formulated without recourse to religious ideas.

Such an alternative is not encouraging. It is hard to choose between an image of man as the result of evolutionary decadence and the other image, in which he must be looked upon as made up of two halves that do not really fit and cannot possibly be harmonized. Such a choice, of course, is not dictated to us by any scientific considerations; for the time being it remains at the level of purely philosophic reflectiol', and hence, from the positivist viewpoint, can be set aside like any other metaphysical dilemma. But from the observational standpoint to which positivism assigns an ideological function in our present historical situation, the question takes on reality. From this standpoint, positivist criticism is a rejection of HReason" so understood, and hence is inevitahly an animalization of the cognitive effort. But this criticism is unable to account satisfactorily for the existence of its opposite, which it treats as mere "errol',)) and hence demands no further interpretation.

Now, several centuries of positivist thought-particularly its critiques of synthetic judgments a priori, of the validity of induction, of "essentialist" metaphysics, and of value judgments -have given non-positivists an awareness of the problems such as can no longer be reversed or concealed. We are not compelled to accept this critique in the sense that it reduces every metaphysical investigation and quest for certainty to mere "error"; but we must take cognizance of one of its results, namely, that this technologically useless intellectual effort to attain to Being must once and for all renounce claims to "scientific" status. This result, as I have said before, may be regarded as almost universally accepted. Finally, we must under this assnmption recognize that when we try to justify our metaphysical investigations or at least to account for them, we are confronted with

CONCLUSION 219

the alternative outlined above: either "Reason" is a cancerous tissue in a sick species, or, within the physical world and the imperatives of our bodily nature, is an alien body originating in another world. The philosophical work of our day has found itself caught-to a great extent under the influence of positivist criticism-between the philosophy of life and the lurid Manichaean vision.

Index

Abstract concepts, 6-7 Activ ism, 171 Adaptation, 122

Agnosticism, 103 Ajdukiewiez, Kazimicrz, 135, 142,

'9), '94-95 Alchemy, 20, 56 America, 179; contribution to phi-

losophy, 154-55 Analytical judgments, IS Analytical philosophy, 174-75 Animal world, 54 Anthropology, 198, 206 Anthropomorphic notions, 117

Anti-individualism, 71 Aristotelian(s), 17, 20; categories,

13; metaphysics, 15i physics, 16 Aristotle, 159; categories for under-

standing the world, 160; nature, 12 Artistic creation, 67 Astrology, 20, 56 Astronomy, 49. 54, 56, 58, 94; nomi

nalists, 160; positive stage, 58; predictions, 60-61

Astrophysics, 53 Atheism, 22, 29, 67 Atomists, I r "Attraction,ll 29 Augustine, Saint, doctrine of grace,

'7 Augustinianism, 16 Austria, 179. See also Vienna

A nthority: Comte, 51; secular-spir~

itual, 63, 64 Autrecourt, Nicolas d', 14-I5 Avenarius, Richard, !Os, 106-14, IIS,

lIS-19, n6, 128, T54, 183,214; critique of "introjection," 109-14; CTitique af Pure ExpeTience, 107-9; disciples, lOSi Ideas, 2Uj "vital series," roS

Bacon, Francis, I2, 80 Bacon, Roger, I2-13

Beccaria, Cesare, 83 Behaviorism, 189-90, 193 Beliefs, irrational, 178 Bentham, Jeremy, 81-82, 83 Bergson, Henri, 77. 78, u6, 131, 132~

217; conventionalism, 148; Le Roy, 135; positivism, 152-53

Berkeley, George, 28-29, 3D, 32, 35, 122, H8, 130

Bernard, Claude~ 73-78j Cdmte, 74-

75, 76 Biological sciences, 58. 73j positiv-

ism, 73-74, 89 Biology, 59 LlBlanquism," 127-28 Bogdanov, A. A., 127 Bolsheviks, 127, H8 Boyle-Mariotte's law, 61

Brazil, 50 Bridgman, P. W., T96 Brzozowski, Stanislaw, 21I, 212

222 INDEX

Buridan, Jean, 16

Calculation, 56 Cambridge University, I79 Capital, 73 Carnap, Rudolf, 179, 183, r84, 187.

204. 207-8 Cartesianism, 27, 28, 59, 163 Castes, 63 Catholicism: Comte, 65, 66; conven

tionalism, 147; Le Roy, I 48-49; modernist French movement, 135

Causality, 15, 26, I21, 124, 115. qo; Comtt, 70; Hume, 38-39; occo.sionalisrs, 27; understanding, 37

Canse: concept oC 36; -effect relationship, 13, 34-35

Chemistry, 56, 58, 94-95; positive stage, 58-59

Christianity. 22, 209

Church, See Catholicism and Reli-gion

Church-State separation, 14 Chwistek, Leon, 204

Cicero, 64 Classes, theory of, 177 Classification, principle, 77. See also

Comte Co-existence, 52, 99 Cognition, 3. 119-20, n8, 129. 172;

biological interpretation, 162; James, 162, r63-64; methods, 176; principle of economy, 125; scientific, I22

Communism, 204 Comte, Auguste, I, 45, 47-48, 105;

biography, 48-5°; classifications, 61-62; critics, 67, 99; disciples, 47,48,49; doctrine, 71; history, 67; influence, 71; Law of the Three States, 53-54; marriage, 49; materialism, 67; mental illness, 47, 49; popularizers, 68; religion of humanity, 47, 64-67; Saint-Simon, 48; science reform, 53-62; social

reform, 50-52; sociology reform, 62-64; thought, results of, 67-72; wodes, 49

Concept.<;, I24-25, 128; validity, II7 Contiguity, time-space, 33 Contingency, 25-26 Contradiction, principle of, 14-15 Conventionalism, (ists), r84; Cathol-

icism, 147; characteristics, 134; consequences, r 50-53; criticisms, 141-47; in France, 135-36; fundamental idea, 134-35; hypotheses, 136-41; ideologies, 147-50; leading idea, 134-36; simplicity, 143-44

Copernicus, 16, 58; theory, 140; 160-61

Counter-Refo,rmatioll, 17 Cuvier, Georges, 56, 61

D'Alembert, 44-45 Darwin, Charles, 73, 90, I2 1-22, 204,

212

Deductive reasoning, 56, 176 Denmark, r 79 Descanes, Rene, 23-25, 163 Despotism, Enlightenment and, ¢ Determinism, 76, ]'67 Dewey, John, 169. 170 Differentiation, 93 Dilthey school, 190 Dingler, Hugo, 135, 139, 149 Dissolution, 92 Divine Will, IS Dogmatism, 165 Dualism, 109, I I r, 1 I 3, 168

Dubislav, M., 179 Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 124

Duhem, Pierre, II7, 135, 136, T38, 144, 146, 147; Physics of a Believer, 148

Economy, principle of, 114-r8 Einstein, Albert: theory of relativ

ity, 135 Empirical data, 9

INDEX 223

Empirical knowledge, 23, 24, 25-26 Empirical reality, 6 Empiricism, I Tl, 176; English, 175;

Enlightenment, 3 I; logical, 173 (see also Logical empiricism); Mill, 80, 81; Renaissance, 18

Empiriocriticism, I04-6, I 13. I2 5-3!; conventionalism, 134, 146-47; features, I31; logical empiricism, 178-79, 2°3; pragmatism, 166; subjectivism, I27

Encyclopedists, 161

Energy, conservation of, 73 Engels, Friedrich, 128, 130 England, 49, 51, 89, 179; empiricism,

175; philosophers, 78; political thought" 82; pragmatism, I71

Enlightenment, 52, 78, 81; beliefs, 45, 83; characteristics, 44; enemies, 46; Hume, 39; positivism, 29-31, 45; totalitarian utopias, 7 I

Environment, I lOft., 1I9i truths, 162

Epistemology, 104, 106, 109, Il3, 147; genetic approach, 197; inferences, 114; theoretical, 198

Essence, 3, 26 Ethics, 830 99; empiricism, 192-93;

scientific, I09, 206; transcendental, 86

Euclid, Element'S, 24 Europe, 5, l8-19, I25; pragmatism,

17 1

Events, predicting, 60-6I Evolution, 91-92; theory of, 53, 61,

73, 89-91 , 92

"Existential curiosity," 210 Existentialism, I, 187, 203, 208; judg

ments, 24, 25; philosophers, 208 Experience, II, 111-11, 176; Critique

of Pure Experience, 107-9; data of, rI, 167-68; flux of, 167, 168; neutralizing, 214; ordering, 7; positivism, 182-83; primacy of, 124-25; "pure," 104, J06, J08, concepr

of, 117-18 Experiment, S6, T09

Experimentalism-nominalism, 13

Fact: atomic, 180, 18r; concept of, 106, II7. 136; conventionalists, 145; practical-theoretical distinction, 138; scientific, 137, laws, lSI

Faith, 20, 95, 148-49; Comte, 67-68; -knowledge, 2 I; nominalism, 16; pragmatism, r66; -reason separation, 14, 37-38

Family, 63, 65-66 Fanaticism, 178 Fascism, 171, 204 Fechner, Gustav, 122:

Fichte, Johann, 204 Fourier) Franyois, 56 France, 48, 50, 5t, 134; Catholic

thought, 135. conventionalism, 135-36; Enlightenment (see Enlightenment); libertines, 21 i Paris, 13, 14-15, 16; philosophers, 78

Freedom, 158; Hume, 43 j Mill, 88-89; of the will, 165

Frege, Gottlob, [79 French Revolution, 51, 7I Freud, Sigmund, 186

Galileo, 6, 18-19, 23, 58, 62, 175 Gall, Franz, 61 Gassendi, Pierre, 20-21, 23, 26

Genetic problems, 104-5

Geometry) 26, 29, 44-45, 81, nI, 140-41, 188; Euclidean system, r41

Germany, 135, 154; logical empiricism, 179; philosophy, 124, 154; tradition, 105; writers, if

Gobineau, Joseph, lOr

God, 18, 22, 26, 95, 165; existence, 36-37, proof, 25; occasionalisrs, 27

Godwin, \iVilliam, 83 Graz, 118

Greece, Ancient, 58

224 INDEX

Haeckel, Ernst, IOI

Happiness, 84, 87; defined, 85 Hegel, Georg, 70, ]67, 19r

Hegelianism, 155. 170 Hcidegger, Manin, 78, 187. 208

B,einz, lO6 Beliocentrism, 16 Helmholtz, Hermann, r02

Helvetius, Claude, 83 Herbart, Johann, r r6, 122

Hick, John, 209

Historical prediction, 191

Historicism, 19[, 203 Historiography, 198 Historio:sophical systems, 45; posi-

tivism, 191-92 History: Camte, 67, 69-70; organic-

critical epochs, 50-5 I Hitler, Adolf, '95 Hobbes, Thomas, r61, 215 Holistic techniques, 191

"How to Make OUf Ideas Clear," 156, 158

Human species, characteristics, 215,

216 Hume, David, 31-38, 78, 83, 104,

In, 124. 151, 186, 212, tI7; characteristics, 43-44; Comte, 72; destructive consequences of work, 38-46; empiricism, 81; l\1ill, 80;

Peirce, 159 Busserl, Edmund, 78, 80, lI8, 125,

I3I, 132, 2II-U; transcendental ego, 203

Huyghens, Chric;tian, 58

Idealism, 130; transcendental, 155 Idealists, 13O Ideas, 32-33, 2II

Identity, principle of, 15 Ideologies, 202 Immanence, 126, I27 Impressions, 32, 120' 128 Individuality, 71, IPi concept of,

121; Mill, 88-89

Induction, 214-15; vaUdating, 186 Inductive reasoning, 39, 41 Inequality, 46 Infallible knowledge, 14-15 Information, 3 Instincts, 163 Intellectual development. See Mind Intelligence, r 89 Introduction to Experimental Med

icine, 73, 74, 77 Introjection: critique, 1°9-14; prin

ciple, 1I0-I4 Intuition, 109 Italy, prabJInatism, 171

James, William, ISS, 160-68; Dewey, 169, '70; Peirce, 16o, r61-62; pop· ularity of ideas, 168; utilitarian criteria, 16r

Jaspers, Karl, 208

J esui tism, 1 65 Judgments, 166; analytic, 28, 29,

188; a priori, ISO; Dewey, 169; existential, 24, 25, 28; logical empiricism, 176; (of) matters of £act, 33; necessary, 28, 29; value, 7-8, r68, 192-93, 202

Jupiter, 139

Kant, Immanuel, 86, 102, IOs-6, II7, II 8, In, 130, 140, 161, antiKantians, 193; Prolego'mena, 119;

thing-in-it.<;clf, 129 Kantianism, 124 Kepler, Johannes, 58 Knowledge: anti-metaphysical, 71;

antithetical concepts, 176; applicability, 53-54; a prio1'i, 180; classes, 180; controlled experiments, 12;

criteria, 24; defining, 5; empiriocriti.cism, I06; explanatory-useful opposition, 160; infallible, 14-fS"; intellectual autonomy, 59, 60; interpretations, II, r6-I7, 42; laws of development, 52-53; limita-

INDEX 225

tions, 30-3 I; meaning of, 40; Mill theory, 80; "necessary," 2S; nominalist'>, 14; Ockharn concept, 13-14; origin, J 34; positivism, 17, 212-13; power, 12; pragmatism, r6-17, 42; prohibitions, 9; relativism, 118-19; reliability, 1s-r6; Scholastic theory, I4; SClentlStlC position, liZ; sensationalist theOlY, 45; superstition, 54-55; totality, 69; transcendental, 21i; (the) UnImowable, 94-96; value, 12, 60; (of) values) I92

Kotarbinski, Tadeusz, 195 Kozlowski, E. M., 17 I

Laissez-faire principle, IOZ

Lamarck, Jean, 90 Lange, Friedrich, 102

Language, 63, us, 123-24, lSI; analysis, 174; cohesive, I94-95; conceptual apparatus, 194; functions, II6; limits, rSo; logical empiricism, 179; positivism, 183; pragmatic aspect, I97; scientific, IS3

Lavoisier, Antoine, 59 Law of the Three States, 53-54, 68,

99 Laws, 68-69. 83" controls, 121; sci

entinc, 61-62, J36-39, 142; universal, 56, 57

Leibniz, Gottfried, 23-24, 25-26, 177 Leipzig, University of, TOO Lenin, Nikolai, I27-29, 130-31 Le Roy, Edouard, II7, 135, 136, I37,

138, I 46-47; Bergson, 148, 152; Catholicism, 148-49; critics, 142

Libertine program, 22-23 Linguistic philosophy, 180 Ljtcrature, 106 Littre, Emile, 49, 68 Locke, John, 30, 178, 205 Logic, 80, f76, iSO, 199; defined, 187;

multivalent, 195; symbolic, 178,

194, 197, I99

Logical empiricism, 199-200, 212-13; centers, 179; characteristics, 203-4, decline, 198-99; ernpiriocriticism, 203; features (positivistic), 177~78i humanities and world of values, 190-95 i ideological aspects, 198-206; operational methodology, 195-97; "physicizing" of science, r88-90; Poland, 193-97; problemsolving, 195; program, 204; scientific statements and metaphysics, 183-88; social functions, 178; sources, I74~79. See also Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Logical positivism, 180 Logic of Modern Physics) The, 196 London, Jack, JOO

Louis Napoleon, 51 Lukasiewicz, Jan, 175, 193-94, 195 Luther, Marrin, 16 Lwow-Warsaw school, 194,195

Mach, Ernst, lOS, 1I5, 118-25, 134, 135, 154, 187, 217; logical empirjcism, 178-79; Russian followers, 127-28; theory, 215

Maistre, Joseph de, 50 Malebranche, Nicolas, 114 Malthus, Thomas, 90 Manichaean doctrine, 218, 219 Manifestation-cause relationship, 3-4 Mankind, 63, 70-71 Marcel, Gabriel, 208 Marx, Karl, 73, 191

Marxism, I, 128, IF, 171 Materialism, 130; dichotomy, J69;

positivism, 151 Materialism and Empiriocriticism,

l27

Materialists, 9-10, 94 Mathematical sciences, 57, 58 Mathematicians, J79 Mathematics, 24, 33-34, 55, nI, 175-

76; positive stage, 58; Pythagoras,

55

226 INDEX

Matter, 4, 23; structure, 53 Manpenuis, Pierre, 114

Meaning(fulness), 196; criterion, 157-58, 159; humanistic sense, 198; positivism- relationship, 182, J83-84

Mechanics, birth of, 18-20

Medieval positivism, Xl-I8

"Melancholy of disbelief,!! 124 Mersenne, Marin, 20

l\.1essianic doctrines, 70 Metaphysicians, 21, 41

lVletaphysics, 3. 4, 7, 20, 26, 58, 122,

135, 166; Aristotelian, J 5; Bergson, 148 (see also Bergson); Bernard, 75; "certainty," 215, :n6, 217; Dewey, 170; Enlightenment, 46; James, 167; logical empiriclsm, 177, 183-88; modern treatises, II; naturalistic, Z3i Ockharn, 13; positivism, 9. w, 181, 198, 207; pragmatism, 155, 160-69; psychology, 8r; restrictions, IS0-8r; Scholastic, 23; spiritual, 147, ljI; stage, of human mind, 55-56; systems, 40

Meta-science, 176-77, 197 Methodology, 195-97, 199 Middle Ages, 55 Mill, James, 83 Mill, John Stuart, 49,73,78-89, 101;

Comrc, 79; contributions, 102; empiricism, 8r; happiness, 87

Mind, llS; -feelings, relationship, 65-66; metaphysical stage, 55-56, 69; positive stage, 56-59; thcologi~ cal stage, 54-55, 69

Mirecourt, Jean de, 14-I5 Miscs, Richard von, 124, 179 Moliere, 56 Monism, 101, 107, 109, 167; empirio-

criticism, J 26 Monotheism, 54, 55 Moore, G, E., 174-75, 192 Moral(s): psychology, 193; rules,

165; science, 58; values, 171

"Moral ce,rrainry," 216

Morality: ascetic, 82-83; defined, 85; science of, 65

Morris, Charles W" 197 Mussolini, Benito, 171 Mysteries, 18, 159 Mystics, 17 1\1 yths, 64, 65

Napoleon, 48 Nation-state, creation, 14 Naturalism, I72

Naturalists, 18 Natural science, 160, 210; aim, IO;

conventionalism, 134; nominalism, 12

Natural selection, theory of, 90 Natural theology, 14, 16 "Naturalll view of world, 131-)2,

133 Nature, 12, 18

Necessary judgments, 28, 29 Necessity, 23, 24, 25, 33-34 Neo-positivism(ists), 183, 192, 196.

See also Logical empiricism Neurath, Otto, 184, 190; Empirical

Sociology, 192

Newton, Isaac, 56-5j, 58 Nicolas of ()resme, 16 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 105, 2 II

Nihilism, 2 I I

Nominalism(ists), 12, 15-16, 150,

159, 160; birth of, n; experimentalism, 13; faith, 16; logical empiricism, 177; Ockham, 14; rule

of, 5-7; Russell, 175; scientific knowledge, 182; tendency, 12

Observation, 56 Occasionalism (ists), 27-28, 30 Occult entities, 3-4 Occult powers, 56 Occult sciences, 20

Ockham, William of, 13-14 "Ockharn's razor," 13, 14

INDEX

Ontology, 198, 203 Ol)en Society and Its Ene'Nzies, The)

19 1

Operational methodology, 195-97 Order, 3I, 32-Ordering (classifying), 120

Origin of Species) The, 73 Osiander, Andreas, 160-6r Oxford and Cambridge movement,

174 Oxford University, 12, 13

Pantheism, 18 Papacy, 14 Papin, Denis, 58 Papini, Giovanni, I71 Paris: nominalists, 14-15; University,

13, 16 Pascal, Blaise, 58, J 8 r, 209 Peirce, Charles S., 155-57; Dewey,

170; goal, 166; "I-low to Make Our Ideas Clear," 156, 158; positivism. 155-60

Perception, 109 Peripatetic tradition of knowledge,

14 Personality, 126 Petzoldt, Joseph, 105 Phenomen:1, 56-57, 76, 1°9-10; pre~

dieting, 190-91, 192 PhenomenaEsrn(ists), J6, 23, 24; En~

lightenment, 30; rules, 3, 5, II

Philosophers, 78, 170 Philosophes, 30 Philosophical detenninisrn, r 58 Philosophical lnvestigations~ 179-80,

182 Philosophy: American contribution,

154-55; analytical, ] 74-75; existentialist, 187; goal, 107; laws, 91; of life, 154; 168, 17 I; linguistic, ISO; modern, 161; "parry prbciple in,') 130; positivism, 183; pragmatic, I 54ft.; romantic, 70; -sci~ ence relationship, 78, 107; task, 9I,

I74, 182, r83; vices, 155 Phrenology, 61 Physics, 6, 9, 29, 58, 134; Aristotelian,

16; Duhem on propositions, 146; French conventionalists, 135; Galileo, I1)-20; language of, 188-90; phenomenalist, 20; positive stage, 58; propositions, J35; theory of~

137 Pbysics of a Believer, 148 Physiology, "transcendentalt 97 Pius X, Pope, 149 Planck, Max, III

Planetary system, 16, 139, 140 Plato(nism), 5, 18 Pleasure-pain, 84, 87. 88, 108, 112 PJekhanov, Georgi, 127 Pluralism. r67 Poincare, Henri, JI7, 134, 135, 139,

140, 142, 146-47 Poland, 135; logical empiricism, 179,

193-97; pragmatism, I7l Pope, the, 147 Popper, Karl, 75, 179, 184, 185-86;

works, 191

Positivism, 1-2, II-46, 104-33; con~ temporary, 202-3, 213, 2 I 4; conventionalism, 135-36, 150-53; defined j 2~3. 9; dichotomy, J69; Enlightenment, 2<)-3 I; essentials, 25; ethics, 78-79; evolutionary, 8C)-101, 212; father of (see Burne); logical, 174 (see also Logical empiricism); main features, 100;

medieval, 12-d3; modern, 21, 17I-

72; nominalism, 5-7; over-all view, 1-10; phenomenalism, 3-5, philoso~ phy and historical development, 26; pragmatism, H, 154-73; radical view, 209-10; rules, 3-<), IS; science, 8-9, 73-78; stages, 10, 56-57; targets of criticism, 190-<)I; tenets, 14-15, 23; theory of lmowledge, 17; value judgments. 7-8; vitalism,

>28 INDEX

153- See also Comte; Hurne and Peirce

Positivist.<:;; ~mti-met~'lphysical bias, 207-8; contemporary, 187; radical, 154; rationalism, 198

Positivist Society, 49-50 Poverty of Historicism, Tbe, 191,

192

Power: intoxication of, 204; knowl~

edge, I2; Namre, 18, occult, 56 Practice, criterion of, 129-30

Pragmatism, 12, J3, 197; American, 154-55; consequences, J68-69; criterion of meaning, r 57-58, 159; empiriocriticism, 166; Europe, 171; founders, 171--72; meaning. overall, 16<j-73; metaphysics, 160-69; modernist style, 171--72; popularity, 168; positivism, 154-73; Peirce, 155-60, philosophy of life, 168; rudimentary, 16-17; term, 155; truth, 164

Prag'ue, r I 8 Preconceptions, 123

Prediction, historical, 191

Prejudice, 64, lIO, 178 PrincilJia Mathematica, 175 Principles of Morals and Legislation

(Bentham), 81 Private property, 52, 63 Probability, 142--43; theory of, 53 Progress, 51, 52; concept of, 92 -93;

science of, 64 Protestantism, 209

"Psychic contents," I I

Psychologism, 80 Psychology, 58, 61, rI2j associ

ational, 79, 168; behaviorist, I~; experimental, 197; of morals, 193

Psychophysical parallelism, 1 I I

Ptolemaic theory, 140

Quantum theory, 178 Questions, 193

Races, theory of, WI

Racism, 204; anthropology, 206 Radical relativism, 162

Rationalism, 176, 20S"; fundamental rule, 178; logical empiricism, 177

Realism, 36, r 67, 18 I Real.ity, 6, 18-19; without man, 129 Reason, 216-19; -faith controversy,

37-38; sufficient, principle of, ;6 Reasoning, 80, 81; infallible rules of,

15 Refonn: Saint-Simon, 48; of Soci

ety, 79 Reformation, 17 Reichenbach, Hans, 179, 186, 188,

204 HReism," 195 Relarivism, of knowledge, n8-19 Relativity, theory of, 177, 178 Religjon, 63; Dewey, nQ; hostility

to, 103; of humanity (Comte), 47, 64-68, 70, 74; Humc, 36; idealists, 130; James, 165, man, 95; metaphysics, 36; "natural," 44; place, 37; positivism, 64-67, 68; rational, 37-38; science, relationship, 21-22,

94--96; totemic, 54; truth, 14 Renaissance, 17-18, 19; naturalism,

19 Revelation, 28 Revolutions, 63-64, r 27 Romantics, the, 102, 103 Rules, 2-IO, {56, 165 Russell, Bertrand, 175. 179, 204, 210 Russia, 127

Saint-Simon, Henri de, 48 Saint-Simonians, 48, 50, 64, 67 Schiller, F, C, S" 171 Schlick, Moritz, 142, I79, 182 Scholasticism, 13, 15. 16, 17, 28,209;

theory of knowledge, 14 Science (s), 3; abstract, 7; classifica

tion, 58; defincd\ 6, IJ9; Descartes, 23; determinism, 76; experimental

INDEX

control, 143; history of, II8ff. (see also Law of the Three States); Hume, 41; hypotheses, verification, 142-44; idealization, 19, ideological misuse, 206; interdependence, 60; laws, 34, 61-62, 136-39, 142; Leibniz, 23; logical order, 58-59; meta-, 197, natural order, S"8, 5'9; order, 44-4S"; pedagogical order. 59; -philosophy, dividing line, 78; "physicizing," 188-90; positivism, r8-19, 22, 73-78; purpose, 6, 75, 77. 81, 115; reform (Comte), 53-62; religion, 1. I-H, 94-<)6; research, 69; rules, 21, 156; seven, 0S; of society, 50-5r; specialized, 73; "truth," 146; worship of, 30

Scientific method, 8-9, 74, 75-76, 77-

78 Scientism, 78, 160, 173, 177-78, 205 "Self," 125 Sense-impressions, 108-<) Sense perception, I92

Signs, theory of, 197 Simplicity, conventionalists, 143-44 Skepticism, 203 Skeptics, I r, 42

Social behavior, predicting, 61 "Social contract," 52 Social Darwinism, 204

Social DeHlOcracy, 127, 204 Social instinct, 52 Social life, 54 "Social physics," 60 Social reform, Comte, 50-52, 71

Social sciences, 134, 195; logical em~ piricism, I90-91, 192; -physical, differences, 177-78

Society: "biologizing," 101; Comte, 50; evolution, 63-64; feudal, 51; historiosophic schema, 50-5 I; history, 92-93; "organic" interpretation, 71; origin, 53; "positive," )1;

reality of, 63; reform, 79; science

of, 50-51; Spencer, 96 Sociology, S"0, 52, 58; Comtc, 62-64,

71; "dynamics," 64; methodological principles, 68; positive stage, 59, 63; positivism, 190-<)1, 199; "statics," 64; totality of Imowledge, 69; universal science, 60; the word, 62

Socrates, 164, 192 Solar system, 53, 63, 92 Solipsism, 181 Sou~ the, 4, 22, 23, 109-10

Space, Ill; concept of, 140-41 Spencer, Herbert, 73, 89-101, 105,

II4, r67; Comte, 98-99; contributions, 102; social philosophy, 204

Spinoza, Baruch, 101

"Spirit," 4; of the age, 99, 102 Spiritualism (ists), 9-10, 18,94; posi-

tivism, lSI

"Springtime of Nations," 73

Stalin, Josef, 131 'IStatics," 64 Stoics, I I

Subjectivism, 104 Substance, 30, 35-36; concept of, IS~

23, 36 Sufficient reason, principle of, 26 Superstition, 46, 54-)51 70, 79 Sweden, 179 System (Spencer), 73 Systerne de Polit.ique Positi'vc) 79 Syste'fJl of Logic (Mill),79

Tabula rasa ("blank slate"), 45 Tarsk~ Alfred, 195, 212 "T echnocratic" culture, 202

Theocracy, 54 Theological state, of human mind~

54-55 Theology, 182, 209 Theses on Feuerbacb, 128 "Things," 120-21

Tillich, Paul, 209 Time, 121

23° INDEX

Totalitarianism, 51, 71, 88 Value judgments, 7-8, 168, 192-93, Tractatus logico-phiioSOiJ/:JicZls, 179- 202

8r, 182

Transcendentalism, 102., 171

Trotsky, Leon, 127

<Truth, 128, 146; concept of, 204; cri~ terion, 159; James, 161-65; necessary, 215; Peirce, 159, 16r-62; pragmatism, 164, 168, 2lO-II; rela~

tivity, 128-29, J69-70; religious, 14; renunciation, 125-26, 131; sci~ ence, 146; utilitarian interpretations, r61

Twardowski, Kazirl1ierz, 179, 193, '94

Universal affection, 49 Universality, 7 Universal laws, 56, 57 Unknowable, the, 94-0 Usefulness, criterion, 160 Utilitarianism, 82-83, 85-89, 99, 160-

61; criteria, 85; principles, 8r-82.

Utilitarianism (Mill), 7J, 81 Utility: Mill, 83-85, 88-89; principle,

82-89; standards, 168-69

Utopianism, 50, 51, 52, 67, 71, 73, I78

Valentinov, 127 Valuation, 87-88, 89

200 LDBR 11/02/95 47505

Values, JI7, 16<)-70, 192, 2IIj logical empiricism, 202; moral, I7I; romantic, 103; science, 193, world of, 170--71, 190-95

Vaux, Clotilde de, 49 Verifiability (verification), 159;

nbasic" vs, "technical," 199-20f ;

defined, J84-85; meaningfulness, I83; partial, 185; principle of, HO; rules, 185, 186, 199; scientific principle, 136, r42-44

Vienna, IJ8, 179; Circle, 179, 193, 194, 195

Vitalism, 105, 153

Whitehead, Alfred North, 175 Will, the, 163; Divine, 15; freedom

of, 165 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 179-83, 2.07-

8, 209 Women, 49; guardian angel con-

cept, 65, 66 World, the, 6, 135, 167 World War I, 178, 179 W undt, Wilhelm, 106

Zola, Emile, lOG Zurich, University of, 106

leszek kolakowski - the alienation of reason

Documents