The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1992) Vol. XXX, No. 1

THE ONTOLOGICAL PROJECT CONSIDERED: THE DISPLACEMENT OF THEORETICAL BY PRACTICAL UNITY Michael Hodges Vanderbilt University

1 Introduction

The ontological project involves the idea that it makes sense to offer a catalogue of the kinds of things there are. Such a catalogue is not a list of what there is for science or mathematics or religion or some other special discipline. It is not a list of the kinds of things it is useful to distinguish for this or that purpose. It is simply a list of what there is simpliciter. Ontology’s claims are not claims about being in so far as it moves-to use Aristotle’s characterization of physics-or claims about being in so far as it is open to prediction and experimental control, to use a more modern characterization of science.l They are claims about what there is in so far as it is. They are claims about being qua being-to again use Aristotle’s useful terminology. But can we really talk about being qua being? In this paper I will argue that we cannot and that abandoning the ontological project as a central philosophical focus allows for a reorientation of the task of philosophical thinking.

There are, broadly speaking, two ways to envision the ontological project. The first is the idea of an overarching study in which the apparent “ontologies” of the various specialized and limited disciplines of science, religion, mathematics, art, history, etc., can be assessed and evalu- ated. In this overarching language the existence claims of the other languages are evaluated and a comprehensive catalogue of what there is is formulated. Of course the evaluation may happen in a very democratic spirit, finding

Michael P. Hodges is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. He has published widely on issues related to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, including his book Transcendence and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Temple University Press, 1990).

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a place for every sort of being, or in a more aristocratic one, setting aside the claims of the many for the favored few. Whitehead’s work offers a particularly clear example of this sort. In any case, this is traditional metaphysics. It is that branch of philosophical reflection that sits in ontological judgement of the manifold claims of the various special areas of inquiry.

The second avenue to ontology denies the claims of a n overarching language in favor of one of the special lan- guages. Typically, at least in the modern world, science with its ontology h a s been given privileged place in a determination of what there is. Quine says, for example,

Our ontology is determined once we have fixed upon the overall conceptual scheme which is to accommodate science in the broadest sense; and the considerations which determine a reasonable construction of any part of that conceptual scheme, for example, the biological or the physical part, are not different in kind from the considerations which determine a reasonable construction of the whole.2

It is important to notice that there is nothing unique in the claim for natural science. Similar claims could be and have been made for revealed theology, pure mathematics, history, and other special disciplines. Philosophy’s past is replete with instances of the emergence of new disciplines which are hailed as finally giving us the key to what there is.

These two approachs are clearly not mutually exclusive since one might offer overarching considerations in favor of a special discipline or attempt to generalize from particular disciplines to something overarching. Nevertheless, in some form or other these strategies underlie all attempts to conceive and carry out the ontological project. Various com- binations and permutations will be examined.

2 The Two Strategies Examined

On the first strategy, we seem to be committed to a super- perspective or “transcendent point of view” free from the limitations of the various special domains. The second, while it may not avail itself of such transcendence, is committed to the claim that some particular inquiry reveals what things there are. But, as I shall argue, since neither is ultimately acceptable, the ontological project is without a clear rationale or statement.

With regard to the first, the very idea of a perspective which is overarching in the unspecified way required is empty. It is the idea of a perspective that is not a perspective. What methods would it employ? What could constitute its

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data? Some attempts to provide content will be examined, but, on the face of it, it is difficult to know how to conceive such a possibility without implicitly and illictly introducing standards borrowed from some specific discipline. What would then be offered as a neutral overarching perspective would already be an example of privileging a particular dis- cipline and thus would constitute an instance of the second strategy. Short of this, however, it is clear that while there may be various reasons why we might seek to be more inclu- sive, there is nothing intrinsically preferable or neutral here.

The second avenue to the ontological project-that of a privileged place for one of the special disciplines-is no better. Any claim to a privileged place depends on purpose. If our purposes are prediction and experimental control, then the language of science must be given pride of place simply because its methods have yeilded the most productive accounts when measured by that standard. If, however, we do not share those interests, why must we suppose that the entities postulated by science are any more real than those of aesthetic assessment, or religious appreciation, for example? Such a contention could only be made if all these various languages serve some common purpose-an assump- tion which is often uncritically accepted by all parties in a debate. The current creation/evolution discussion provides a relatively unsophisticated example of this. But even Quine makes the same assumption when he compares the Homeric gods to physical objects as theoretical posits.3

If we reject the hypothesis of a common purpose, we will be left with a multiplicity of different inquiries and with the “ontology” of each. There will be no sense to the attempt to bring unity to this multiplicity except for a particular purpose. Paradoxically, bringing that sort of unity also adds to the multiplicity. It adds yet another particular inquiry to the already existent group.

Following a suggestion implicit in the quotation from Quine, it may be argued that the ontological project does not adopt a “perspective which is not a perspective,” it simply adopts a more general perspective. From there it submits the “ontologies” of the special disciplines to rational scrutiny. Quine claims that the considerations which determine a reasonable construction of any part of the scientific scheme “are not different in kind from considerations which determine a reasonable construction of the whole.”4 On this view ontology’s standards of evidence and assertion are continuous with those of the special disciplines. Such criteria as simplicity, economy, theoretical elegance, and explana-

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tory scope can be appealed to by the ontologist as well as the physical scientist or the economist. To ask what there is simpliciter is not to transcend our usual standards of evidence; it is to apply those standards in a general way.

This line of argument is not independent of the two strategies already identified because the idea of “rational scrutiny” is ambiguous. On the one hand, it may require that we be able to characterize “rationality” independently of particular inquiries, which commits us to the notion of transcendence already rejected. On the other, it may require according privileged standing to some particular discipline. Of course, it is possible to characterize “rationality” in a way that is neutral to a given range of inquiries, e.g. chemistry, economics, and anthropology. But suppose that we now consider some new domain, e.g. religion, to which that defi- nition does not apply. Can it provide a s tandard of evaluation? Obviously not, defenders will reply, since a notion of rationality based on such a limited range of disciplines so as not to capture the rationality of religious discourse is clearly inadequate. But then we have no standard to criticize the “ontology” of the new discipline. The mere fact that a definition of rationality is adequate to some domains but not others cannot be grounds for rejecting claims of the latter unless that definition already had some special standing. But it cannot, on the alternative that we are examining, since it is supposed to be a generalization from the special disciplines themselves. What is missing is some reason to include or exclude certain disciplines from the original group from which to generalize.

If we look closely at the actual criteria proposed, e.g. simplicity or explanatory scope, they seem to be borrowed from science so that its explanatory and theoretical positing activity is given normative status for “ontology.” On this alternative we have not “generalized” from the special disciplines as such. We have selected one among them as revealing what rationality is and generalized from it. This is the “second way” identified earlier. But in that case we cannot appeal to such a standard of rationality to justify our choice. That would be circular. What will be needed is an independent argument for why the chosen discipline is worthy of being an exclusive model, and that is not forth- coming. The idea that ontology is simply a more general rational scrutiny than the special disciplines simply does not provide a real alternative to the positions previously examined.

It does not follow from all this that there is no way to

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criticize the existence claims made by the special disciplines. At one level such criticism will be the business of the special disciplines themselves. And those inquiries will proceed by the standards appropriate to them. The only point to make here is that over and above the question for physics-“Are there neutrinos?”-there is no further significant “ontological” question, such as, “But are there really neutrinos?”

There is, of course, a second sort of critique. Individual practitioners within the special disciplines may make claims which go beyond the limits of the discipline. A particularly clear example of this is again found among some religious conservatives who take their religious views, say about creation, as rivals with scientific claims about the same matters and at the same time contend that their views are to be preferred on grounds which are beyond scientific assessment. This cannot be defended. In fact, it represents a version of the ontological project itself-one which gives primacy to one special discipline and even one discourse within that. Such claims are no more justified than are the ontological claims that would give primacy to the language of science. It is a task that has typically been left to philosophers to attempt to sort out competing claims made in the name of particular disciplines and to assign them appropriate standing. This is not an a priori task that can be done once and for all. Rather it is one that is done and continually redone in the light of developments within the special disciplines.

A critic might suggest that my argument, in effect, gives privileged place to the notion of purpose itself. Have I not argued that every representation, that is, every language, is “for a purpose”? And doesn’t this come very close to saying that all representation has an a priori transcendental structure-that of purposiveness? There are three related points to be made here. First, it is, of course, possible to use the notion of purpose in such a way that even idle play can be said to have a purpose-to play. However, even this “trivial” point is badly misleading because it blinds us to the fact that the very aim of play may be the suspension of purposiveness itself. What this means is that from within the activity, it would be inappropriate and perhaps even contradictory to speak of purposes. Of course, it may never- theless be helpful from some other purpose to describe such an activity in terms of “its purposes.” But this does not commit us to philosophical transcendence or to the primacy of any description. It only commits us to what I call

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“situated difference.’’ All that is presupposed is a discourse different from the “discourse of play” in which a description of play is situated and which is itself situtated amid other discourses.

But even for descriptions where “purpose” is a legitimate concept, it is important to emphasize that purposes are not accessible in a n “extralinguistic” fashion. That is, we cannot always or even typically identify the purposes of a discourse independently of the discourse itself. Purposes arise in and through languages, and their articulation presupposes the language in which they arise. This is perhaps obvious from the case of science characterized in terms of experimental control. A full explication of “experimental control” would require a substantial range of terms which fall within the discourse of scientific inquiry. It is not as though one might have a pre-linguistically “given” set of purposes in terms of which the multiplicity of language could be mapped out. Such a suggestion would indeed involve the transcendence already rejected.

Finally, by identifying purposes as a “transcendental structure” my critic is focusing attention on the apparent unifying and explanatory force of that idea. But surely “being purposive” is a family concept. And that means that behind the grammatical identity, there is a multiplicity of different “being purposives.” The more one focuses on this multiplicity and diversity, the less likely it is that one will want to claim it as a “transcendental structure.”

There is still another objection relating to purpose. It will be claimed that while different purposes can give rise to different, equally legitimate discourses, such purposes must be “cognitive purposes,” if the discourses are to be equally legitimate from the point of view of truth. Consider again the example of religion. No doubt, religious language is as legitimate as scientific language, given its purposes and supposing that they are not the same as those of science, but it does not follow from this that religious language expresses any truths. If, as Freud suggests, religious discourse only serves to make us feel more secure in a world we cannot control, then since that is not a cognitive purpose, religious claims have no legitimacy as truths even if they do serve their purposes well. But ontology is, after all, a cognitive inquiry a n d thus need only concern itself with those discourses which serve cognitive purposes. However, all such discourses have a common aim-the truth. On this basis it may seem possible to reintroduce the priority of science, for example, as the only discourse which serves Cognitive

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purposes and so the only one which reveals the truth. Or it may seem that the way is open to some general charac- terization of “cognitive purposes” which would then provide the basis for an ontological inquiry. Thus the destructive thrust of the analysis of the ontological project developed here can be seen to depend on a simple ambiguity in the concept of purpose.

But what can be meant by “cognitive purposes“? Of course there may be a variety of reasons for distinguishing between one inquiry and another for some particular purpose, and so a variety of reasons for calling a given inquiry “cognitive.” However, any account t ha t could provide help to the ontologist would necessarily presuppose the idea that there is such a thing as “the point of view of truth,” characterized independently of particular discourses. Then we could define a cognitive inquiry as one which aims at truth. Surely, this “point of view of truth” bears a remarkable resemblance to the transcendental point of view rejected eariler. The idea that we might first have a list of truths and then determine that a discipline is “cognitive” because it produces or uncovers some members on our list is utterly without content. In the first place it gives no account of the status of the “list” and its membership, and in the second, it presupposes the idea that there are truths that are neutral to all inquiries. But such a neutral list just is the notion of a transcendental “god’s eye view.”

If we abandon the transcendental point of view, truths will exist only within particular inquiries, and so we would now need a list of cognitive inquiries and some justification for including particular ones and excluding others. But this bears a striking resemblence to the second avenue to ontology identified earlier. What sort of justification could be put forward that would not beg the question? Without some independent justification, we are simply defining truth as the aim of cognitive discourses and the cognitive discourses as those which aim at truth. While this “interdefinability” may be acceptable for some purposes, it cannot be accepted by those who seek to defend the ontological project as suggested above. This line of argument offers us nothing new. It either reduces to the first avenue to ontology or the second. It either requires a transcendental notion of truth or it requires that we give an unjustifiable privileged status to some particular discourse, both of which have been rejected already.

There is, however, something intuitively plausible about the religion example that needs to be explained. Why is it plausible to claim, as the critic does, that given Freud’s

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assessment of religion, it does not serve cognitive purposes? The answer lies in the way that Freud formulated the issue between science and religion. Simply put, for Freud both science and religion are engaged in the same p r ~ j e c t . ~ Both religion and science attempt to provide explanations of natural phenomena so that each competes with the other. Since both science a n d religion do, i n fact , sha re a fundamental purpose, each can be judged by reference to that purpose. The success of science is, therefore, the failure of religion. What science does successfully in a cognitive way religion can only do non-cognitively. While th i s “reductionist” account of religion is badly misleading, it is not my task to contest it here. The only point to be made is that the plausibility of the example turns on accepting the reductionist claim. If we do accept the claim, the example poses no threat to the critique of ontology. In so far as two discourses serve a common purpose they can be judged by common standards. On the other hand, if we reject the claim then we also reject the example as it stands. While it is certainly true on my view that the way in which science “knows the world” is radically different from the way in which religious or mythological language “knows the world,” it would be mere prejudice, on that basis, to hold that religious claims have no status as true.

A final note about truth: the sort of approach advocated here must reject the idea that there is a philosophically interesting characterization of truth which is not discourse specific. Richard Rorty is right when he suggests that the best “theory of truth” is no theory at Attempts to develop theories will, I suspect, always parallel one or the other of the two approaches to ontology already discussed. Realists will define the “realm of truth” as the independent, objective co-relative of the true statement-that to which the true statement corresponds. But such a proposal is without content. If it is taken in one way it is absolutely unobjec- tionable, since reality is just whatever it is that makes true statements true. But if it is not taken in this trivial way, what does it tell us? To get beyond trivality, we are again forced to chose between attempting to give content to a transcendental point of view or justifying the selection of some particular discourse as uniquely revealing the truth. In that sense all such theories are located within the same problematic, and by rejecting the problematic (“changing the subject,” as Rorty puts it) we do not offer another theory of truth but simply set the “problem” aside.

There is one classical objection to all attempts to undercut

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metaphysics that must be confronted. It will be argued against what has been said here that it does not escape from the very metaphysical reasoning that it seeks to call into question. After all, I have offered arguments for the view that all discourse is situated discourse. I have engaged in traditional philosophical discussion to convince others of the truth of my position over against theirs, and so on. Why isn’t all of that simply metaphysics, perhaps better metaphysics but nonetheless metaphysics? Any attempt to get beyond metaphysics must always fail because either what is claimed will be irrelevant to the issue of the possibility of meta- physics or it will be a piece of metaphysics. In either case metaphysics is possible and, in fact, unavoidable.

This general form of argument is well known and has been known for quite some time. Hume in the Treatise of Human Nature comments concerning skeptical reasoning:

If the sceptical reasonings be strong, say they, it is a proof that reason may have some force and authority; if weak, they can never be sufficient to invalidate all the conclusions of our understanding.7

But Hume finds the argument unconvincing because it fails to take account of the intellectual situation to which it is addressed. Reason first appears in possession of the throne. . . with absolute sway and authority. Her enemy, therefore, is obliged to take shelter under her protection and by making use of rational arguments . . . produce, in a manner, a patent under her hand and seal. The patent has a t first an authority, proportioned to the present and immediate authority of reason, from which it is derived. But as it is supposed to be contradictory to reason, it gradually diminishes the force of that governing power and its own at the same time; till at last they both vanish away into nothing.8

The analogy to ontology should be clear, Those who are convinced that metaphysical thinking has played itself out have but two alternatives. They can engage in a different form of thinking altogether and thus be open to the charge of irrelevance. (One example of this form of thinking will be discussed in the final section of this paper.) Or they can attempt to make intellectually respectable the transfor- mation from ontology to something else by addressing such thinking in its own terms. Obviously, if one is to confront metaphysical thinking in a way that is convincing for metaphysical thinking it will initially be necessary “to take shelter under” her protective banner. The point, however, is not wha t is being claimed which “is supposed to be contradictory to” metaphysical thinking but the way in which “it gradually diminishes the force of that governing

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power and its own at the same time.” Thus the critic focuses on the claims that are made here, not on the transformation of thought that those claims are designed to bring about. This is not surprising given the nature of metaphysical thinking. Of course it is true, for metaphysical thinking, that all “claims” must be either further metaphysical claims or irrelevant to the issue in question. However, this merely reaffirms the claimed primacy of such thinking. It does not offer an independent argument for its validity. It does not exhibit a necessity in the nature of the things nor does it show the absolute unavoidability of ontology as the critic would have it. Rather it is merely a feature of the accidental historical situation in which metaphysical thinking already occupies the field. Seen from this vantage point the objection actually displays the limits of metaphysical thinking itself.

3 Changing the Subject: Theoretical to Practical Unity

If the previous argument is correct, the various discourses which form our intellectual and social scene cannot come together in the sort of theoretical unity that is the aim of ontology. There is no place to stand from which to articulate the supposedly unifying categories or concepts. Given the rejection of the possibility of transcendence, any attempt to bring theoretical unity merely adds to the diversity. But, perhaps there is no great loss here.

It was Wittgenstein who showed us just how unconnected the philosopher’s use of terms is from their everyday employment. In a wonderfully ironic comment, he says, I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again “I know that that’s a tree,” pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: “This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.9

In an earlier section of On Certainty Wittgenstein sums up the project of the book, saying, What I am aiming at is also found in the difference between the casual observation “I know that that’s a . . . ,” as it might be used in ordinary life, and the same utterance when a philosopher makes it.lo

When a philosopher discusses the nature of being or knowledge we may properly wonder whether such terms bear any more relation to everyday uses than do the chess master’s uses of the term “bishop” to current church politics. It is important to see that this point does not deny that such problems have their own internal integrity-games certainly do-and even their own sort of interest. However, one thing

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that the analogy with chess does bring out is the utter optionality of the “problems of philosophy” traditionally conceived. Of course, one might wonder why anyone should acquire a taste for such games.

We are, after all, not mere game players-mere readers of texts-we are actors in a much larger world in which we confront a range of problems-in which our reading of texts is guided by practical concerns. Simply put, we read so that we might write our own text, but this is not a matter of contributing to a n ongoing isolated intellectual conversation. It is a matter of weaving the very fabric of our lives.

If we suspend, for a moment, our traditional philosophical attitude of intellectual detachment, another possibility will become apparent. In fact, it is no mere possibility. The obvious point, unnoticed, and perhaps for philosophers, almost unnoticeable, is that a unity already exists. All of the various discourses always and already “come together” by impinging on-forming and transforming-our actual lives. For all of us, at least when we are not being philosophers, these discourses are not mere intellectual objects but vehicles through which lived possibilities of experience are created. Our lives, when we shop at the grocery store, plan a trip abroad, wonder about the ecomomic future, debate the merits of various presidential candidates, or go to the doctor already display a coming together of the possibilities for experience inherent in the discourses about which we have been so concerned. This is a practical unity, not a theoretical one, and it is a unity that already exists; it is not merely posited. It is the unity of lived experience.

The discourse of the physical and natural sciences already shapes the ongoing experience of each of us both by literally transforming experience through technology and by supplying categories for experience. We may wonder exactly how this happens but we cannot deny the fact. Of course, there are various other contributors. One’s religious sense also contributes to the character of experience, and the concepts of economic and political theory become and already are the very institutions in terms of which we live our communal lives. Works of art and our understanding of them, and thus both artists and critics, continually remake the fabric of our experience, allowing us to see new aspects of the objects and lives around us. Nor are these various discourses closed to each other. Science and technology affect art, and all are affected by and in turn affect the economic and political. All this has happened and is happening. Whatever the “theoretical” issues, science and

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religion, to take two prominent examples, are already joined in our lived experience, whether the union is a happy one or not. The multiplicity of discourses already finds a place in our lives which are at the same time constituted, transformed, and, one hopes, enriched by them. In fact it would be a mistake to think of experience as something prior to and independent of the multiplicity of available discourses themselves. Rather it just is the lived reality of that multiplicity.

In so far as we treat the coming together of discourses in our lives as a given, the only appropriate philosophical task is a descriptive one, that of describing the specific character of the coming together at a particular time. The question, most generally put, is how do the various resources of the tradition come together in the on-going experience of a particular historical age-our own or another? This is not a question of how, for example, the “truths” of science square with those of religion but rather it is a question of how science and religion inform and transform our lives at a particular historical moment. In fact, to call this descriptive task “philosophical” is merely a matter of courtesy. Obviously it will be as much a matter of historical, socio- logical, and imaginative modes of reflection as anything else. To call it philosophical is, I think, best understood in terms of the broad question in the light of which such descriptions are sought. This is no transcendental question about the necessary conditions for the possibility of something. It is a practical question which itself is guided by an intensely practical concern: how might we reorganize current experience in light of available possibilities and their interactions so as to enrich it?

The “coming together of discourses” is not a mere occurence without qualitative dimension. While every age and every life is a particular coming together, not all are equally successful. Just as individuals are schizophrenic when they are unable to achieve a satisfactory unity of all the elements that constitute their lives, so we might, by anal- ogy, speak of a cultural form of that disease in which the many resources of an age fail to find a satisfactory unity. For example, a number of philosophers, including Wittgenstein, have contended that our age is overly dominated by the idea of “scientific knowledge” so that religious and ethical possibilities for experience have been radically distorted.ll Of course, there can be no a priori assessment of such possibilities since the only real test is the satisfactoriness of actual experience. Further, there can be no a priori accounts

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of the basis of failures to achieve satisfactory unity. These are broad empirical issues that can only be resolved by careful attention to the actual conditions of experience at any given time. For this reason we cannot offer a priori accounts of various isolated elements which make up a given unity, for example, religion and science. The question is always better formulated not as how does science interact with religion but as how can these particular scientific findings and this particular religious outlook inform, transform, and enrich human lives. Even this is far too abstract , for any reorganization will be addressed to particular felt dissatifactions and will take its character from that. For this reason there cannot be any “final and complete unity,” and the details of each unity will be the important matters. Science and religion should not be thought of as structures of theoretical truth but as tools for the trans- formation of experience. Thus their value is a function of what they can do and whether they can do what they do together. What does the structure of ideas that is con- temporary science do for us and how does it do it? What does a particular religious outlook do and how? Do they work at cross purposes? These are the sorts of questions that need to be asked and answered.

On this view, philosophy will be nothing more or less than cultural criticism seeking to uncover and establish the conditions necessary for satisfactory experience in actual human life. The kind of critiques that are relevant here are the sorts of accounts that point out how one discourse may blind us to the values of others or exclude others by their own claims. Phenomenological descriptions of the pervasive features of the everyday life world will be useful not only for what they display but for what they show as excluded. Heidegger’s discussion of technology provides an example of the sort of philosophical work I have in mind here. It calls into question the dominating role of modern technological thinking in which all things are reduced to possible means, as that functions to destroy the possibility of certain experiences of intrinsic value. Other examples include Freud’s or Nietzsche’s critique of religion as limiting and inhibiting as well as Dewey’s contention that various forms of religious believing are destructive of the possibility of religious experience because they are built around an exclusive claim to truth or validity. On a more positive side one might consider the attempts of various liberal theologians to free religious believing from the sorts of limited structures imposed by traditional metaphysics. Here

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I think of Tillich’s theology or Wittgenstein’s remarks, especially in Culture and Value.

All this “reconstruction of philosophy” might finally lead to a reexamination of a good deal in the history of philosophy, looking at traditional metaphysical thinkers as contributors to the ongoing process of cultural critique and reorgainization. The point is not to attack the “metaphysical truth” of their positions but to examine the various claims made from the point of view of practice. Do they open the possibility of transformations which lead to richer and more satisfying experience? Do they make possible more stable satisfying experiences? Do they offer ways for discourses to work together to unify experience into a satifactory whole, or do they tend to compartmentalize and reduce particular stretches of experiences for the sake of others? There are various possibilities, and there is no need to prejudge the outcome of such discussions.

NOTES

I do not suppose that “prediction and experimental control” offers a fully adequate characterization of natural science. Obviously a good deal more needs to be said.

W. V. 0. Quine, “On What There Is,” in From a Logical Point of View (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), p. 17.

Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View, p. 44.

Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” p. 17. Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (New York: Norton, 1961), p.

17. Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmaticism (Minneapolis: University

of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. xiii. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Garden City, N.Y.: Dolphin

Books, 19611, p. 171. Ibid. (my emphasis).

9 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972), p. 61, section 467.

lo Ibid., p. 52, section 406. l1 See Culture and Value, ed. G. H. von Wright in collaboration with

Heikki Nyman (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980). This dominance of science is taken as the central theme of Wittgenstein’s later work in the interesting biography by Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Duty of Genius (New York: The Free Press, 1990).

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