The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other EssaysVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays
Veblen, Thorstein
Economics; Science
What is true of the individual in this respect is true of the group in
which he lives. All economic change is a change in the economic
community,--a change in the community's methods of turning material
things to account. The change is always in the last resort a change in
habits of thought. This is true even of changes in the mechanical
processes of industry. A given contrivance for effecting certain
material ends becomes a circumstance which affects the further growth of
habits of thought--habitual methods of procedure--and so becomes a point
of departure for further development of the methods of compassing the
ends sought and for the further variation of ends that are sought to be
compassed. In all this flux there is no definitively adequate method of
life and no definitive or absolutely worthy end of action, so far as
concerns the science which sets out to formulate a theory of the process
of economic life. What remains as a hard and fast residue is the fact of
activity directed to an objective end. Economic action is teleological,
in the sense that men always and everywhere seek to do something. What,
in specific detail, they seek, is not to be answered except by a
scrutiny of the details of their activity; but, so long as we have to do
with their life as members of the economic community, there remains the
generic fact that their life is an unfolding activity of a teleological
kind.
It may or may not be a teleological process in the sense that it tends
or should tend to any end that is conceived to be worthy or adequate by
the inquirer or by the consensus of inquirers. Whether it is or is not,
is a question with which the present inquiry is not concerned; and it is
also a question of which an evolutionary economics need take no account.
The question of a tendency in events can evidently not come up except on
the ground of some preconception or prepossession on the part of the
person looking for the tendency. In order to search for a tendency, we
must be possessed of some notion of a definitive end to be sought, or
some notion as to what is the legitimate trend of events. The notion of
a legitimate trend in a course of events is an extra-evolutionary
preconception, and lies outside the scope of an inquiry into the causal
sequence in any process. The evolutionary point of view, therefore,
leaves no place for a formulation of natural laws in terms of definitive
normality, whether in economics or in any other branch of inquiry.
Neither does it leave room for that other question of normality, What
should be the end of the developmental process under discussion?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account