Classroom Only

THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE

In section A we considered the scientific

attitude as exemplified in the works and

thought of three outstanding figures of the
Renaissance. Now I want to discuss the main
characteristics and implications of that
attitude in a more general way and make
some reference to its impact on the social
sciences. The discussion will be organized
under five headings:

 (1) the source of scientific knowledge;

(2) the demarcation of science;
(3) Platonic idealism and Aristotelian

essentialism;
(4) the Homeric view of events; and
(5) the idea of progress.

1.The source of scientific knowledge

The discussion of Galileo's Letter to the

Grand Duchess Christina above noted

the extent to which he defended himself
against the charge of heresy by
contending that the only source of
knowledge about natural phenomena is
the direct examination of the phenomena
themselves.

 This ran counter to the view, widely held

at the time, that established religious

authority has a great deal to say about
what is true and what is false, in respect
of natural phenomena as well as in
matters of theology, morals, and politics.
This view of science was of the greatest
importance in the modern history of
Western civilization.

 It helped to establish the principle of

intellectual freedom, which was

extended to areas of human thought and
experience well beyond the domain of
natural phenomena - to politics,
economics, ethics and even to religion.
Once the power of authority had been
broken in the field of science, it became
possible to release its grip in other areas
of human life and thought.

 So far as the social sciences are

concerned, it is doubtful whether they

could have come into existence in their
modern form without the achievements
of the natural sciences that preceded
them.

2.The demarcation of science

The scientists of the Renaissance did not

contend that the scientific method was

applicable to all areas of thought and
experience. On the contrary, their view
was that the method was limited to the
investigation of natural phenomena. This
notion that scientific matters are
demarcated from others is still held by
modern science.

 I want now to illustrate the non-

demarcational view by discussing briefly

the Thomistic concept of natural law,
and then try to clarify what is meant by
science by examining the principles
upon which it is demarcated from other
areas of study.

 Christian theology experienced diverse lines

of development through the writings of many

different theologians, especially during the
first few centuries of the Christian era. A
systematic statement of Christian theology
was not achieved until the thirteenth century
by the work of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74)
His writings, especially the Summa
Theologica, have exerted enormous influence
on theology, and philosophy more generally,
down to the present day.

 In 1879 Pope Leo XIII declared his work to

embody the authoritative doctrine of the

Catholic Church. It was through Aquinas that
the ideas of Aristotle became an important
component of Catholic philosophy.

3. Platonic idealism and

Aristotelian essentialism
The most important of the thinkers of ancient

Greece were Plato (c. 427-c.347 B.C.) and his

pupil, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Their ideas
have continued to exercise profound
influence upon Western thought down to the
present day.

 There are significant respects, however, in

which the modern scientific attitude is

contrary to the Platonic and Aristotelian
outlooks and, to an important extent, the rise
of modern science represents a breaking away
from these ancient thinkers.
Plato advanced the view that sense experience
is, to a considerable degree, misleading or
even illusory.

 The true world is abstract, consisting of the

universal ideas of things rather than

concrete specific items. Knowledge consists
of understanding the pure form of things,
which is perfect, not the worldly examples,
which are not. Obviously, such a view does
not encourage one to search for knowledge of
nature by empirical methods, since these
serve only to provide sense data, which are
regarded as inherently unreliable.

 The proper route to knowledge is by using the

powers of rational thought in a purely abstract

way, such as in mathematics, dissociated from
the world of sense experience, to grasp the
pure form or idea.

4.The Homeric view

Homer was a Greek poet (or group of poets)

who lived in the eighth century B.C., four

centuries before Plato and Aristotle. The great
epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey are still
read and form part of the culture of Western
civilization. The feature of Homer that I want
to note here is the view projected in these
poems of the determinants of human and
social events: whatever happens is due to the
will of the gods.

 In the field of natural phenomena the

counterpart of this is the belief in witchcraft,

occult powers, and the like.
It is obvious that no science could be
constructed if the Homeric view of the world
were correct. We could not discover any laws
of nature because there would be none that
could not be broken or altered by the desires,
or whims, of the gods.

 The best we could do would be to

psychoanalyse the gods in order to understand

how they behaved; which is in fact what the
Homeric poems concern themselves with
when the narrative seeks to provide some
explanation of events. The natural sciences
have extracted themselves altogether from the
Homeric view.

 The modern physicist, or chemist or biologist,

regards phenomena as explicable in terms of

laws of nature, which are not subject to
alteration by either human or supernatural
powers. The laws of nature furnish the
explanation of why a cannonball will fall if
dropped from a height, and why a bird will
not. The flight of the bird is not contrary to
the laws of nature, but in accordance with
them.

5. The idea of progress

The idea of progress is so prominent in the

culture of modern Western civilization that it

is difficult to believe intellectual historians
when they tell us that its appearance in
Western thought can be dated back no further
than the seventeenth century. But the burden
of historical evidence seems, broadly
speaking, to support the view that the modern
era differs from the earlier ones in this very
important aspect.

 The social sciences developed concurrently

with the growth of the idea of progress in

Western culture. Undoubtedly they were both
a cause and a consequence of that idea. Given
the orientation of social science to the
pragmatic analysis of social problems, it is
unlikely that it could flourish in a static
society or one in which people believe that
knowledge has no influence upon events.

 In these respects the way for the development

of the social sciences was prepared by the

earlier successes of the natural sciences in
demonstrating the possibility of secure
progress in knowledge.