International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Philosophy
International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Conference proceedings; Medicine -- Congresses; Science and the humanities -- Congresses; Technology -- Congresses
But the objections against a generalizing plan were not confined to the
mistaken fear that we sought to antagonize the productive work of the
specialist. They not seldom took the form of a general aversion to the
logical side of the ground-plan. It was often said that such a scheme
has after all interest only for the logician, for whom science as such
is an object of study, and who must thus indeed classify the sciences
and determine their logical relation. The real scientist, it was said,
does not care for such methodological operations, and should be
suspicious from the first of such philosophical high-handedness. The
scientist cannot forget how often in the history of civilization science
was the loser when it trusted its problems to the metaphysical thinker
who substituted his lofty speculations for the hard work of the
investigator. The true scholar will thus not only object to generalizing
"commonplaces" as against solid information, but he will object as well
to logical demarcation lines and systematization as against the
practical scientific work which does not want to be hampered by such
philosophical subtleties. Yet all these fears and suspicions were still
more mistaken.
Nothing was further from our intentions than a substitution of
metaphysics for concrete science. It was not by chance that we took such
pains to find the best specialists for every section. No one was invited
to enter into logical discussions and to consider the relations of
science merely from a dialectic point of view. The topic was everywhere
the whole living manifoldness of actual relations, and the logician had
nothing else to do than to prepare the programme. The outlines of the
programme demanded, of course, a certain logical scheme. If hundreds of
sciences are to take part, they have to be grouped somehow, if a merely
alphabetical order is not adopted; and even if we were to proceed
alphabetically, we should have to decide beforehand what part of
knowledge is to be recognized as a special science. But the logical
order of the ground-plan refers, of course, merely to the simple
relation of coördination, subordination, and superordination, and the
logician is satisfied with such a classification. But the endless
variety of internal relations is no longer to be dealt with from the
point of view of mere logic. We may work out the ground-plan in such a
way that we understand that logically zoölogy is coördinated to botany
and subordinated to mechanics and superordinated to ichthyology; but
this minimum of determination gives, of course, not even a hint of that
world of relations which exists from the standpoint of the biologist
between the science of zoölogy and the science of botany, or between the
biological and the mechanical studies. To discuss these relations of
real scientific life is the work of the biologist and not at all of the
logician.
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