On the Scientific Methods and Truth; D. K. Stewart

ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH t';} ::baniet J(. Stewart ONE of the great idealists of the last century, Bernard Bosanquet, once said that "it is not cleverness or learn ing that makes the philosopher; it is a certain spirit; openness of mind, thoroughness of work, and hatred of superficiality.! His point, of course, was not intended to apply mere ly to philosophers but to any and all persons who might be interested in truth for its own sake. Thus, his remark would apply equally well to persons engaged in scien tific work, in politics, in economics, in religion, or any other activity where the avowed intention is the expan sion and acquisition of knowledge that is reflective of reality-be it seen or unseen. But surely, to speak and act with a view to obtaining the truth in all matters is simultaneously to speak and act from a world view having different norms and values than what prevail in our time.

Indeed, we are told that to be interested in such pur suits is to be most impractical, and that no one is really 1 Bosanquet, Bernard. The Essentials of Logic. London: Macmil lan and Company, reprinted 1948. p. 167. 398 ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 399 interested in the truth. We are told to wake up and stop dreaming, that the bald-faced fact is that we are living in an irrational world. We are told that throughout his tory, different systems of what constitutes truth have ex isted. 'Which system, if any, is the valid one for eternity? Is empirical knowledge truth? Is knowledge gained through revelation truth? And by these questions, the implication is that "truth" is relative, depending on how each of us defines the meaning of that word. To think otherwise is to be old-fashioned, somewhat unsophisti cated, and at best, just a wee bit naive. But, for all of this, for my part, if we are to be good judges we must say what we think. And our thought is that to those who are under the false impression that agnosticism, cynicism, or intellectual nihilism is mod ern, I would suggest that they dust off some of those books they have been indoctrinated against and start reading Plato's Protagorusand Theaetetus.

In these two dialogues in particular, we meet Prota gorus, the original progressive educator. Here, in the fifth century B.C., we meet up with the doctrine that everything has a relative truth only; there are no abso lutes, in that "man is the measure of all things."2 Thus, even while this· doctrine stems from antiquity, we find it passionately embraced as a first article of faith by those very people who would accuse conservatives of trying to turn back the clock, as being "reactionary" in political affairs, and as being comparable to "fundamen2 Plato. The Dialogue$, tr. by B. Jowett. New York: Random House, 1937. Vol. II, p. 153.

400 DANIEL K. STEWART talists" in religious matters. (A "fundamentalist" for these people is anyone who fails to grasp the "logic" of construing the spiritual brotherhood of theology in terms of biological brotherhood.) It would be of little moment, of course, if these views and epithets came from people with limited education. But, on the contrary, these views and epithets come from members of the "intelligentsia," from people who hold Ph. D.'s. They come from university administrators whose primary responsibility, ironically, is to fulfill the trust placed in their hands to carryon the best traditions of our society, to endow their students with moral princi ples, to instruct them in the ways of becoming more human. Accordingly, we are awe-stricken when some uni versity presidents find it repugnant for their students to take an oath of loyalty to their country while others boldly disseminate, as progress reports, the moral rela tivism, "Man is the measure of all things."

The Spirit and Methods of Truth Thus, Bosanquet's remark of the nineteenth century sounds exceedingly modern when compared with the type of philosophy enunciated by many within our present-day academies of higher education. The "certain spirit" that Bosanquet is talking about is, of course, the spirit of truth. And the "thoroughness of work" he mentions refers to the methodological tech nique employed while seeking this truth. These are but ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 401 some of the things which go to make the philosopher. But, also, these are the very things which go to make the scientist, those scientists, at .least, who make their mark in history. (We are not talking about those trades men whose chief occupation is literally to collect, count, and classify, and whose unders tanding of reality is re stricted to those things which can be kicked and stimu lated in some manner.) For my part, good scientists are also good philosophers, and vice versa; even as philos ophy begins with wonder, so does science.

Thus, the search for truth and one's methodological techniques are mutually implicative propositions. And it is for this very reason that the critical study of what has come to be known as "the scientific methods" is most important in one's intellectual upbringing. These meth ods are not restricted to science, of course, even though some individuals might feel that things not convention ally identified with science are necessarily apart. from it. For these individuals, philosophy could never be construed as having to do with "real" science. And, in final analysis this is more a semantic problem than any thing else, hinging on what is meant by the term "science." Even so, it is an interesting paradox that those people who do the most critical thinking about the scientific methods are not scientists at all, but, in fact, are philoso phers-or at least they receive their income under this label. Under less presumptuous occasions they call them selves positivists or logical empiricists. Positivists are to philosophy as the tradesmen mentioned above are to 402 DANIEL K. STEWART science. Both are skilled technicians. Both excel at op erational thinking.

Scientific methodology, therefore, has to do with those techniques which the modern philosopher critically ex amines and the modern scientist professes to use. They refer to those tools which anyone employs on those occasions that he is searching for truth. They have to do, first of all, with a critical understanding of logic. They include some understanding of what is meant by "systems-of-thought" and "systems-of-explanation" inso far as these are embodiments of theories, laws, and deTHE SCIENTIFIC METHODS Cause and effect ..analysis Theory ~f Probability,the I / free will problem, and + moral responsibility Qualitativeand / Quantitativeanalysis Necessaryand .....1: --- sufficientconditions ....u a::---- Theories """-~ , ~~Laws \ ,c." " ~ "' Hypotheses \~ \ . Logic (validity,deduction, induction,ambiguity, vagueness,etc.) Mill's Canons Controlledexperiments '\ Fundamental ~ measurement----.....

.., o X ---O~ f'* c1'tIf' Definitions"""" ~'~;I C1assifications//~/C'it I t / ASSIS't Descriptive Istatements Analogies Facts (observation,percepts, conceptformation,etc.) ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 403 scriptions. A critical knowledge of the nature of facts, hypotheses, measurement, probability, and so on, also is included among the scientific methods. Thus, if we define a "system-of-thought" as a coherent, orderly arrangement of ideas or beliefs regarding some given subject, and a "system-of-explanation" as the physical explication of this system-of-thought, then the point of epistemological significance involved here can be graphically presented in the following manner. From the diagram on page 402, it is necessarily im plied that the scientific methods can be thought of as epistemological tools which have as their primary object the production of true systems-of-explanation. These are the entities we can lay hold of, talk about, and hone down to an extremely critical, highly discriminatory edge. After all, this is what the mind is for-to reason.

Not sloppily, and not with dull tools, but with the best and sharpest tools one possesses. It is my position that knowledge may be viewed as a series of "systems-of-explanation," and that these sys tems are the product not only of science but of anything that man thinks and talks about. The real issue in any thing is, What is the truth? To approach this we, as human beings, most of the time employ signs of some sort, normally words. Therefore, in any discourse which is being pres ented to us as truth, the primary task is to look for a consistent system-of-explanation, and, sec ondly, the empirical facts-directly or indirectly ob tained-and which would make the propositions in that system true. Thus, ideas and facts go together in that 404 DANIEL K. STEWART "Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind."3 And this is as true for science as it is for those systems dealing with religion, aesthetics, politics, philosophy, or anything else.

Our Contemptuous Sophistication Now we are cognizant, of course, that we live in an age and a climate-of-opinion which rebels at this sort of procedure. Any attempt to reach the minds of the young cynics of our time is met only with a kind of contemptuous sophistication. In terms of intellectual growth, they are like the young boy who quit learning because he thought he knew all there was to know. And as the boy grew older, the more sophisticated he be came, until finally no one could tell him anything. He knew so little, he knew it all. Even in science, which boasts of having an open mind, many biologists will at one time say, "We can never know what life is," and, at another time say-with wide eyed innocence, "There is no life after death." In one case they admit they do not know what "life" is, yet are quite willing to assume they do in the next case. That these biologists are materialists is obvious.

But it is also true that, through the history of mankind, materialism has always been the enemy of truth. 3 Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: Mayer and Muller, 1889. p. 100. "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind," where intuition means per ception, sensibility, or senses. Thus, Kant subsequently states, "the understanding cannot see, the senses cannot think."

ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 405 Yet, it is often said that we live in a materialistic age. And certainly no one would question the truth of this. For no other explanation can better account for the success in this country of such materialistic philosophies as positivism, pragmatism, and their political manifes tation-totalitarian liberalism. (Liberalism, as Chodorov so succinctly puts it, is simply socialism without Marx.) That this type of philosophy has infected our educa tional and political institutions is also self-evident. One merely. has to read various campus newspapers, text books, "progress" reports, and look at various showcases to observe the political and philosophical slant which is presented. In many states today genuine political liberty does not, in fact, exist. Calling the same political philos ophy by two different party labels does not alter the identity of that philosophy. "Bi-partisanship" is the or der of the day.

In short, any alternative philosophy which insists that traditional norms and standards be maintained is de scribed by the materialists as being "old-fashioned," "re actionary," "extreme right wing," or just plain "anti liberal." In fact, to be concerned more about the welfare of one's own country-as opposed to some other country -is to leave ourselves open to smear and intimidation by the political liberals. Indeed, materialistic philosophy has been so successful that, as a consequence, patriotism actually has to be taught to young people going into the armed services. This fact, among several possible facts, certifies the ex tent that we have intellectually alienated ourselves from 406 DANIEL K. STEWART the teachings of traditional philosophy. It marks the extent that we have divorced ourselves from norms and values-and truth. So it is for these reasons, and many others, that we have emphasized here the point of getting the truth. As human beings, as communicating individuals, we nor mally proceed in our search for truth only by the pro duction of some system-of-explanation and the necessary facts to back up this system. For my part, if we are not given both of these, the chances are excellent that we are being propagandized for a given purpose.

Emphasis on the Individual Thus, it is now clear why we have chosen to empha size this methodological aspect of science. Our interest has been in terms of its broader implications. Critical thinking applies itself to all areas of human endeavor. We are concerned especially with the task of making human beings more human. This necessarily implies that we are concerned with people not as a group which is a sheer fiction-but as individuals unique in every way_ Our primary concern has been to explicate a methodo logical basis of truthful knowledge. Because it is appar ently only through this basis that human beings come to acquire some knowledge of norms and values, some knowledge of our duties and responsibilities, and, most important, some knowledge of morality. For my part, it is as Sigwart says-that the principles ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 407 of methodology ultimately point to the idea of a moral God; and that this God can only be more definitely ap prehended by means of these principles which forever stand before our thought as the purpose for which they exist. 4 The form of truth does not vary from discipline to discipline; it is only the subject matter that varies. In final analysis, truth is one, not many. There are not "truths"; there is only truth.

In conclusion, we now recognize that the popular phrase known as "the scientific methods" is really a mis nomer, and that it might be more significantly called "general methodology for approaching the truth." And we recognize, also, that this methodology does not be long to science alone. Rather, it belongs to any, and all, disciplines where truth is the goal. The Ideal Is Practical At this point, someone may ask somewhat wearily, "Why all this talk about truth? Of course we are inter ested in the truth, but we have to live, too; we must earn a living and get along with other people (together ness)," and so on. But these remarks merely reflect that point of view I spoke about earlier, namely, that the pursuit of truth is most impractical-the general idea being that we ought to stop dreaming, wake up to the facts of life, and "live modeI'n," as it were. 4 Sigwart, Christoph. Logic~ tr. by H. Dendy. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Company, 1895. Vol. II, p. 548.

408 DANIEL K. STEWART Again, that this cynicism is the fashionable philosophy of our age we do not deny. But also, that it has failed miserably is an empirical fact. So what may appear prac tical to some people may not be practical at all. And what may appear most impractical may, in final analysis, be the most practical thing there is. Even so, we might reply with Hegel when he was speaking of the earlier cynics that they are, "generally speaking, nothing more than swinish beggars, who found their satisfaction in the insolence 'which they showed to others."5 But more than this, it is these very exhortations which mark the stampede away from personal responsibility and a philosophy of life which has some semblance of morality about it. They mark the prevalence of agnos ticism, cynicism, and, in general, intellectual nihilism. The problem, as always, is fundamentally a philo sophical one, ergo, our interest in truth and our empha sis upon methodology. For that system by means of which one directs his behavior-that is, one's very own philosophy of life-ought to be truth-oriented. And the truth-value of any given philosophy of life is measured only in terms of the criticalness of one's methodology.

For my part, the early period of our life-our youth is the most important. It is here where we receive our basic notions of what constitutes good and bad moral and ethical judgments. And the point is that no one would want these basic notions of anything less than 5 Hegel, Georg w. F. Lectures on the History of Philosophy, tr. by E. S. Haldane. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1955. Vol. I, pp. 486-487.

ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHODS AND TRUTH 409 the purest form. Indeed, they should be of the strong est and most durable fiber obtainable-the most perfect, the ideal. It is in this sense, therefore, that Plato suggests we should teach our youth to love but one form only-the pure form; and soon they will see that the beauty of one form is analogous to the beauty of another. And then, if beauty of form in general is their pursuit, how foolish they would be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same-the beauty of truth. 6 IS Plato, op. cit. Vol. I, p. 3tH.