Scientism and Values Thewilliam Volker Fund Series in the Humane Studies

Scientism and Values TheWilliam Volker Fund Series in the Humane Studies EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS by Ludwig von Mises THE ECONOMIC POINT OF VIEW by Israel M. Kirzner ESSAYS IN EUROPEAN ECONOMIC THOUGHT Edited by Louise Sommer SCIENTISM AND· VALUES Edited by Helmut Schoeck and James W. Wiggins Freedom School Library Scientism and Values Edited by HELMUT SCHOECK AND JAMES w. WIGGINS D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY TORONTO LONDON NEW YORK D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. 120 Alexander St., Princeton, New Jersey (Principal office) 24 West 40 Street, New York 18, New York D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, LTD. 358, Kensington High Street, London, W. 14, England D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY (Canada), LTD. 25 Hollinger Road, Toronto 16, Canada Copyright, @, 1960 by WILLIAM VOLKER FUND Published simultaneously in Canada by D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY (Canada), LTD. No reproduction in any form of this book, in whole or in part (except for brief quotation in critical articles or reviews), may be made without written authorization from the publishers. Library of Congress Catalogue Card No.: 60-16928 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contributors LUDWIG VON BERTALANFFY, Sloan Visiting Professor, The Men ninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas. His works include Mod ern Theories of Development (1933); Problems of Life (1952); and General Systems: Yearbooks of the Society for General Systems Research (Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Anatol Rapoport, editors, 1956 et seqq.). WILLIAM T. COUCH, Editor in Chief, Collier's Encyclopedia, New York City. He was editor and contributor to Culture in the South (1954) and These Are Our Lives (1939), and has written articles and reviews for scholarly and literary journals. PIETER GEYL, Professor Emeritus of Modern History in the Uni versity of Utrecht. His works include The Revolt of the Neth erlands (1932); Napoleon: For and Against (1949); and Debates with Historians (1955); The Use and Abuse of History (1955). HENRY S. KARIEL is a faculty member at Bennington College, Ver mont. Among his recent publications are "Normative Pat tern of Eric Fromm's Escape from Freedom," Journal of Politics (1957); "Democracy Unlimited: Kurt Lewin's Field Theory," American Journal of Sociology (1956); and "Limits of Social Science: Henry Adam's Quest for Order," Ameri can Political Science Review (1956). RALPH W. LEWIS, Professor of Biology, Michigan State University. Among his published papers are "Mutants of Neurospora Requiring Succinic Acid or a Biochemically Related Acid for Growth," American Journal of Botany (1948); "The Vita min Nutrition of Alternaria solani," Phytopathology (1952); and "An Outline of the Balance Hypothesis of Parasitism," American Naturalist (1953). v VI Contributors MURRAY N. ROTHBARD, Ph.D., consulting economist, New York City. Selected publication~ include "Toward a Reconstruc tion of Utility and Welfare Economics," in M. Sennholz, ed., On Freedom and Free Enterprise, Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises~· "In Defense of 'Extreme Apriorism,'" Southern Economic Journal (1957). HELMUT SCHOECK, Professor of Sociology, Emory University. His books include Nietzsches Philosophie des Menschlich-Allzumen schlichen (1948); Soziologie-Geschichte ihrer Probleme (1952); USA: Motive und Strukturen (1958); and Was heisst politisch unmoeglich (1959). ROBERT STRAUsz-HuPE, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, University of Penn sylvania. Works include The Russian-German Riddle (1940); The Zone of Indifference (1952); Power and Community (1956); The Idea of Colonialism (1958); and Protracted Conflict (1959). ELISEO VIVAS, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Northwestern University. His publications in clude The Moral Life and the Ethical Life (1950); Creation and Discovery (1955), and D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and the Triumph of Art (1960). RICHARD M. WEAVER, Professor of English, University of Chicago. His published works include Ideas Have Consequences (1948); The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953); and Composition: A Course in Writing and Rhetoric (1957). W. H. WERKMEISTER, Director, School of Philosophy, University of Southern California. His publications include A Philosophy of Science~· The Basis and Structure of Knowledge (1948); and A History of Philosophical Ideas in America (1949). JAMES W. WIGGINS, Professor and Former Chairman, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Emory University. Among his publications are Foreign Aid Re-examined, coeditor, (1958) and "Society's Interest in the Marital Status," Journal of Public Law (1955). He is director of the national study, A Profile of the Aging: U.S.A., to be published in 1961. Contents PAGE Contributors V Introduction ix by HELMUT SCHOEC~ CHAPTER 1 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE PROBLEM OF VALUE 1 by W. H. WERKMEISTER 2 OBJECTIVITY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 22 by W. T. COUCH 3 SCIENCE AND THE STUDIES OF MAN 50 by ELISEO VIVAS 4 CONCEALED RHETORIC IN SCIENTISTIC SOCIOLOGY 83 by RICHARD M. WEAVER 5 FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY AND THE IMPROBABILITY PRINCIPLE 100 by JAMES W. WIGGINS 6 KNOWLEDGE: UNUSED AND MISUSED 119 ?y HELMUT SCHOECK 7 SCIENTISM IN THE WRITING OF HISTORY 144 by PIETER GEYL 8 THE MANTLE OF SCIENCE 159 by MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 9 GROWTH, IN BIOLOGY AND IN EDUCATION 181 by RALPH W.LEWIS 10 THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF SCIENTISM 202 by LUDWIG VON BERTALANFFY vii viii Contents 11 SOCIAL SCIENCE VERSUS THE OBSESSION OF "SCIENTISM" 219 by ROBERT STRAusz-HuPE 12 SOCIAL SCIENCE AS AUTONOMOUS ACTIVITY 235 by HENRY S. KARIEL INDEX OF AUTHORS 261 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 265 Introduction HELMUT SCHOECK "Scientism" is a term of criticism. In the realm of aesthetic creativity, the critic is usually a revered and accepted professional. But in the field of social science the man who suggests self-criticism and internal systematic doubt of what we are doing often invokes the scorn and wrath of his fellows who feel threatened in smug niches of narrow expertness.l However, though we use the term "scientism" in a slightly pejorative and reproving sense, we do not think of ourselves as antiscientific. Scholars who are critical of scientism·· do not offer intuitions as the remedy. On the contrary, the word "scientism" conventionally describes a type of scholarly trespassing, of pseudo exactitude, of embracing incongruous models of scientific method and conceptualization. Scientism fosters not only the "fads and foibles" of contemporary sociology, but is also in itself a symptom of an insecure world view, of a negative social philosophy. Certain models of society, certain techniques which this volume evaluates, and for which we suggest the label "scientism," appeal sometimes to insecure individuals and groups because such use of science in human affairs supposedly would allow one to "fix," to freeze the world once and for all.2 Moreover, scientistic interpretation of the study of man throws the scholarly grasp of human nature and its volitions open to ideological manipulations when least suspected. Quantities can be ,as subjective an argument as a stress on qualities. But most people are less aware of this fact. If the public or fellow scholars are unwilling, for· prescientific, i.e., ideological reasons, to accept our arguments, statistical data and their expert manipulation will ix x Introduction not convince them. Indeed, we can always startle our positivistic friends in the social sciences by asking them to name just one major policy decision or law that came about, against the popular and political preferences for it, on the strength of quantitative data. Can we recapture the proper-i.e., most fertile-balance between elements of measurement, of quality, and of form in the study of social man? Over a number of years participants in this symposium, and others, have shown, in their individual publications, increasing concern with the harm done to the true study of man, especially as a social being, by a form of scientism that takes various disguises of strict scientificalness. It is. not merely neopositivism, which, by the way, has been criticized by a number of· able men; it is also more than a cult of quantification. Scientism implies a cynical world view-in the original meaning of the word: it is a doglike view of man, or shall we say riatlike? Man is best understood, so the scientistic expert holds, when seen from th'e level of a rodent eager to learn the ins and outs of a maze. He can be conditioned to put up with almost anything the few wise designers of the maze have mapped out for him. And yet a critical attitude toward scientism is not to be con fused with an antievolutionary position. On the contrary, we see scientistic sociologists and anthropologists refuse to learn from research on animals because it might challenge their creed of en vironmental determinism. As A. L. Kroeber observed not long ago,3 many of his colleagues in America are studiedly ignorant of the work of the ethologists, including such renowned men as Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, who explore species-specific innate behavior patterns. Thus, we should ask just which aspects of the presocial and nonsocial sciences appeal to those afflicted with scientism.? And why are they enthralled and to what effect? The scientistic students of social man have isolated their field from meaningful •reality by an arbitrary barrier of methodology. "What we cannot study does not exist-for the time being." This was done partly 'by reserving the'labels: "scientific" and "scholarly" (wissenscha/tlich) for a few approaches' to reality which

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