Leszek Kolakowski - The Alienation of Reason

The Alienation of Reason
A HISTORY OF POSITIVIST THOUGHT

by Leszel? Kolakowski
Translated by Norbert Gute1'1nan
DOUTILEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY! NEW YORK
1968
This book was published in Poland by Panstwowe Wydawnicrwo Naukowe
in 1966 as Filozofia Poz'ytywistyczna (od Hume 'a. do Kola Tifliedenskiego).
Copyright Panstwowe vVydavm.ictwo Naukowe, 1966.
Library of Congress CAtalog Card Number 68-121 57
Copyright 1968 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
/y
Preface
This book is an account of the mam stages of positivist
tbought. whicb bave to be briefly characterized if we are to
grasp the meaning of this pbilosophy, tbat is, the inferences to
be drawn from it as well as what is enduring in it. The term
"positivism" does not refer simply to a specific philosophical
doctrine tbat denies being either a doctrine or a pbilosopby. It
is also used in connection witb a specific theory of law, a
particnlar CUrrent in literary history, and a characteristic treat-
ment of a number of theological cJuestions. To use the same
term in all these connections is not entirely arbitrary, but justi-
fied to some extent by a common intellectual attitude to be dis-
cerned in them alL On the other hand, their similarity is not so
strongly marked as to rule ont separate discussion. In this book
I am concerned exclusively with positivism in the sense of a
philosophical-or, if you prefer, an anti-philosophical-doctrine.
I have deliberately avoided mentioning a great many names,
since my intention is not to provide a detailed historical survey,
listing as many contributors to this current of thought as pos-
sible, bnt rather to bring out its most important features, the
ones most helpful for grasping it as a whole. Thus, the reader
will find here only the best-known names in tbe history of
positivism. Even to list the individuals and problems omitted
would be OUt of place here.
The first and tbe last chapters deal with the same subject:
they represent an attempt to characterize the phenomenon as a
whole. However, the first merely expounds the most important
vi PREFACE
features of pOSltlVlSm to be found in the philosophical texts.
In the last I inquire into the general meaning of this style of
thinking, which as a rule is not dealt with by its adherents.
In some cases the book contains critical observations. These
are clearly distinguishable from the purely informative portions.
Most of the criticisms come from other sources, but since this
book is addressed to the general reader I have not troubled to
indicate where I speak in my own name and where I draw on
others. For the same reason I don't list the critical and historical
sources r have made use of. My aim here is not to discuss new
or previously ignored problems, but merely to present a well-
known phenomenon in such a way that the reader may not
only be informed about it objectively, but also brought closer
to understanding its function in our culture. Both the informa-
tive and the "analytical" portions of my exposition may, how-
ever, be looked upon as the results of already existing reflection,
a procedure admissible iu this type of presentation.
Contents
Preface
ONE. An Over-all View of Positivism
TWO. Positivism Down to David Hume
THREE. Auguste Comte: Positivism in the
Romantic Age
FOUR. Positivism Triumphant
FIVE. Positivism at the Turn of the Century
SIX. Conventionalism-Destruction of the
Concept of Fact
SEVEN. Pragmatism and Positivism
EIGHT. Logical Empiricism: A Scientistic
Defense of Threatened Civilization
Conclusion
Index
v
!I
47
73
134
154
174
20
7
221
The Alienation of Reason
\
CHAPTER ONE
An Over-all View of Positivism
The term "positive philosophy" was coined by Auguste
Comte, and it has lasted down to the present iu the shorter form
of "positivism." Not all, however, who according to historians
or critics profess the positivist doctrine, would agree to he classi-
fied nnder this heading. As a mle snch objections are motivated
by the fact that thinkers arc reluctant to admit they profess a
doctrine that has had a long and complex bistory. To respect
their wishes, one wonld be obliged in each case to single out
those elements in positivism that are not to their taste, at the
same time pointing out bow mnch of the rest of it they nonethe-
less snbscribe to. Also, many thinkers are conscious of the errors
and oversimplifications that grow up around doctrinal labels,
and for this rcason hesitate to enroll themselves under any
banner.
In view of this situation, setting bonlldaries to the cnrrent of
thonght positivism represents in nineteenth- and twentieth-cen-
tnry intellectnal history reqcires a decision that is partly arbi-
trary. The same problem arises in many other cases (for example,
when one discnsses the history of existentialist or Marxist philos-
ophy). A measure of arbitrariness, however, is unavoidable both
for the historian and for the student of philosophical culture.
One has to organize the material at hand according to some
schema, disregarding differences in matters one looks upon as
secondary, if one is to bring ont the continnity in primary con-
texts. Nor is this distinction between primary and secondary
strains in philosophy entirely arbitrary. It is based all certain

2 THE ALIENATION ,OF REASON
historical data that show, it may be with the aid of purely quanti-
tative (though approximate) indices, that certain themes, prop-
ositions, or assertions held the attention of readers, polemicists,
and adherents over a given period, while others went almost
unnoticed. The classifier or historian who discerns a certain
"current" in the history of philosophy goes on to refer solely
to historical, factual criteria in justifying his construction. Other-
wise he might be suspected of ascertaining intellectual trends on
the basis of arbitrarily chosen principles (though even this is
permissible, provided he clearly formulates his criteria). More-
over, he refers to a sense of continuity that actually was felt
by successive generations of adherents, and given expression by
them. There is room for error in interpreting such evidence, bnt
it certainly merits being taken into account.
In the present instance, however, we are dealing with a matter
that is scarcely controversial: the existence of a "positivist cur-
rent" in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy is uni-
versally acknowledged. Doubts arise only when we try to define
this current, and to formulate rigorous criteria setting it off from
the other currents. This situation is as normal and inescapable in
the history of philosophic thought as in the history of art: the
interpeuetration of ideas, the ways oue current influeuces an-
other or reacts agaiust it, not to menti?u genuine amhignities in
the texts themselves, mean that there IS always room fur more
than one interpretation; perfectly clear-cut divisions are ruled
out by the circumstances of the case.
So let us try to characterize the positivist mode of thinking
iu the most schematic, over-all terms.
Positivism stands for a certaiu philosophical attitude concern-
ing human knowledge; strictly speakiug, it does not prejudge
questions about how men arrive at knowledge-ueither the psy-
chological nor the historical fouudations of knowledge. But it is
a collectiou of rules and evaluative criteria referring to human
coguition: it teIls us what kind of contents in our statements
about the world deserves the name of knowledge and supplies
AN OVER-ALL VIEW OF POSITIVISM
3
us with norms that make it possible to distinguish between that
which may aud that which may uot reasonably be asked. Thus
positivism is a nonnative attitude, regulating how we are to use
such terms as "knowledge," "science/' "cognition/' and "infor-
mation." By the same tokeu, the positivist rules distinguish be-
tween philosophical and scientific disputes that may profitably
be pursued aud those that have no chauce of being settled aud
hence deserve no consideration.
The most important of the rules that, according to the positiv-
ist doctrine, are to be observed in order, so to speak, to separate
the wheat from the chaff in any statement about the world-i.e.,
to determine the questions worth considering and to discard
questions that are falsely formulated or iuvolve illegitimate con-
cepts-are as follows.
1. The rule of phenomenalism. This may be briefly formu-
lated as follows: there is no real difference between "essence"
and "phenomenon." Many traditional metaphysical doctrines
assumed that various observed or observable phenomena are mani-
festations of a reality that eludes ordiuary cognition; this as-
sumption justified the lise of such terms as "substance," "sub-
stantial form," "occult quality," etc. According to positivism,
,
the distiuction between essence and phenomenon should be elim-
iuated from science on the ground that it is misleading. We are
entitled to record only that which is actually manifested in
experience; opinions concerning occult entities of which ex-
p,erieuced things are supposedly the manifestatious are untrust-
worthy. Disagreements over questions that go beyond the do-
L--
main of .:;xrerience are purely verbal in character. It must be
noted here-that positivists do not reject every distinctiou be-
tween "lnanifestation" and After all, it is weB known
that whooping cough "manifests" itself by characteristic fits of
coughing, and ouce such a type of disease has been isolated, we
are entitled to recognize the cough as a "manifestation" and to
inquire into the specific "hidden mechauism" of this manifesta-
tiou. Discovery of Bacillus pertussis early iu this. century, as the
4
THE ALIENATION OF REASON
causal agent of the infection, was not, ohviously, incompatible
with the assumptions of phenomenalism. For positivists do not
object to inquiry into tbe immediately invisible causes of any
observed pheuomenon, they object only to any accounting f ~ r
it in terms of occult entities that are by definition inaccessible
to human knowledge. Classical examples of entities the positivists
condemn as illegitimate interpolations lying beyond the domain
of possible experience are "matter" and "spirit." Since matter is
supposed to be something different from the totality of the
world's observed qualities, and since with this concept we do not
account for obse.rved phenomena more effectively than without
it, there is no reason to make use of it at all. Similarly, if "soul"
is to denote a certain object different from the totality of the
describable qualities of human psychic life, it is a superfluous
cunstruet, for no one can tell us how the world without "soul"
would differ from the world with "soul."
Needless to say, the phenomenalist "Don't" so form11lated can
give rise to doubt, for it is hard to state it in such a form that
it will settle once and for all, in every possible case, whether
our question is a legitimate one, whether it represents the search
for the "mechanism" behind the "manifestation," or whether it is
to be thrown into the dustbin of history as "metaphysical." In
some cases, the decision is easy to make. For instance, if anyone
maintained that absolntely unknowable objects exist, a positivist
would consider him an incorrigible metaphysician on the ground
that he ~ a s made a statement about a reality that is by definition
not subject to experimental controL Conversely, there can be
no doubt ahout whether it makes sense to inqnire into the possi-
ble existence and properties of a specific cancer virus, for all that
it is for the time being observable only through its "manifesta-
tions." But there are many cases in wl;ich the decision is not so
obvions. We mention this, not as an objection to positivism, but
to call attention to the highly abstract formulations used here to
characterize the positivist program, also to the fact that incom-
patible interpretations of tbis same over-all rule are ro be fonnd
5
within positivism itself. For the moment, however, we will not
go into the over-all rules in greater detail b,lt ,let them stand
Out starkly as a means of identifying one fairly important cur-
rent in philosophical thought. This would appear more instruc-
tive than to restrict the designation ((positivism" to certain
branches of this current only.
2. The rule of nominalism. Strictly speaking, this rule may
be regarded as a consequence of the preceding, but it is pref-
erable to state it separately, considering that in philosophical
controversy one philosophically valid jndgment often follows
from another, yet terminological ambignities can still arise snch
as may make them appear incompatible. The rule of nominalism
comes down to the statement that we may not assume that any
insight formulated in general terms can have any real referents
other than individual concrete objects. As is well known, at-
tempts to define knowledge from this point of view were made
at the very beginning of European thought. ViThen Plato con-
sidered the question: What are we actually speaking about when,
for instance, we speak about the triangle or abom justice? he
formulated a gnestion that has not lost its vitality down to our
own day, thongh it is often posed in different words. We say
that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal to two right
angles. But what does the statement actually refer to? Not to
this or that triangular body, since there is no absolutely perfect
triangle that meets all the reguirements of geometry; nor can it
refer, for the same reason, to all individual triangular obiects.
And yet it can hardly be said that geometry does not refer to
anything at all. H_cnce, OUf assertion must refer to "the" trianrrle,
pure and simple. Bnt what is this triangle, which is to be fonnd
nowhere in nature' It has none of the physical characteristics we
usually ascribe to bodies. For ooe thing, it is not localized in
space. All its properties derive from the fact that it is a triang'le
and nothing else; we must acknowledge that it exists in some
way, although it is an existence not perceived by the senses, ac-
cessible only to reflection.
6 THE ALIENATION OF REASON
Nominalists reject this line of reasoning, We have the right to
acknowledge the existence of a thing, they say, only when ex-
perience obliges us to do so, No experience obliges us to assume
that our general knowledge about the properties of "the" tri-
angle corresponds to a certain entity different from individual
triangular bodies and possessing a separate existence from them,
It is true that our science requires the use of concepmal instru-
ments that describe certain 1geal are
./ in the empirical world. Not only the mathematical scieuces but
also physics make use of such constructs, More particularly,
the physics initiated by Galileo must inevitably make use of
descriptions of ideal simations, in which certain observable fea-
mres of the real world are carried to au abstract point of refine-
ment, Study of the properties of such ideal simations helps
us understand the real situations that ouly approximate them
more or less closely. But these ideal simations-the vacuum in
mechanics, self-contained systems, figures in geometry-are
creations of our own that serve as a superior-more concise and
more generalized-description of empirical reality. There is no
reason to suppose that because we assume such simations for the
convenience of our calculations, they must actually exist any-
where in reality. The world we know is a collection of individual
observable facts. Science aims at ordering these facts, and it is
only thanks to this ordering work that it becomes a true science,
i,e., something that can be pnt to practical nse and that enables
us to predict certain events on the basis of others. All our
abstract concepts, all the schemata of the mathematical sciences,
and all the idealizati.ons drawn up in the natural sciences
are contained in these ordering systems. Only thanks to them
, can we give experience a coherent, concise form, easy to remem-
ber, purified of the accidental deviations and deformations that
are necessarily present in every individnal fact. Though abso-
lutely perfect circles are fonnd neither in nartlre nor in the
prodncts of human technology, we can produce circular bodies
rather closely approximating this ideal, thanks to the fact that
7
we operate with the perfect circle in our abstract calculations.
A system ordering our experiences must be such as not to intro-
duce into experience more entities than are contained in ex-
perience and, since it inevitably uses abstractious among its
means, it must also be such as to enable ns to keep constantly
in mind that these abstractions are no more or less than means,
human creations that serve to organize experience but are not
entitled to lay claim to separate existence .
According to nominalism, in other words, every abstract
science is ..'!... method of ordering, a uantitative recordin of
experiences, and has no 111 ependent cognitive
sense that, via abstractions, it opens access to eIl1P.irically
inaccessible _domainsgLreality. All the general entities, the ab-
stract creations, with which rhe old metaphysics filled the world
are fictions, for they illegitimately ascribed existence to things
that have no existence save as names or words. In the language
of the old controversies, "universaliry" is merely a characteristic
of linguistic constrUcts and also-according to some interpreta-
tions-of mental acts associated with operations involving these
constructs, In the world of actual experience, however, hence in
tbe world pure and simple, there are no snch things as "univer-
sals. "
3. The phenomenalist, nominalist conception of science has
another important consequence, namely, the rule that denies
cognitive value to value judgments and n01'mative statements.
Experience, positivism argues, contains no such qnalities of men,
events, or things as "noble," "ignoble," Ugood,H "evil," "beauti-
ful," "ngly," etc, Nor can any experience oblige us, through any
logical operations whatever, to accept statements containing
commandments or prohibitions, telling us to do something or not
to do it. More accnrately: it is clear that in relation to an aim
one sets oneself, it is possible to supply logical grounds for
judgments concerning the effectiveness of the means employed;
evaluations of this type have a technical character and may be
qualified as true or false to the extent that they have a technical

sense, i.e" to the extent that they tell us what operations are or
are not effective in achieving a desired end, Examples of such
technical judgments would be a statement to the effect that we
should admiuister penicillin in a case of pneumonia or one to
the effect that children oU2'ht not be threatened with a beat;!1rr
c 0
if they won't eat, Such statements can, clearly, be justified, if
their meaning is respectively that penicillin is an effective rem-
edy against pneumonia, and that threatening children with pun-
ishment to make them eat causes characterologic.1l handicaps,
And if we assume tacitly that, as a rule, it is a good thing to cme
the sick and a bad thing to inflict psychic deformation upon
children, the above-mentioned statements can be justified, even
though they do have the form of uormative judgments, But
we afe not to assume that any value assertion that we recognize
as true "in itself," rather than in relation to something else,
can he justified by experience, For instance, the principle that
human life is an irreplaceable value cannot be so justified: we
may accept it or we may reject it, but we must be conscious
of the arbitrariness of our option, For, by the phenomenalist
rule, we are obliged to reject the assumption of values as
characteristics of the world accessible to the only kind of
knowledge worthy of the name, At the same time, the rule of
nominalism obliges us to reject the assumption that beyond the
visible world there exists a domain of values "in themselves,"
with which our evalnations are correlated in some mysterious
( way, Consequently, we are entitled to ex.press value
on the human world, but we are not entitled to assume that our
L
grounds for making them are scientific; more generally, the
only grounds for maklI1g them are our own arbitrary choices,
4, Finally, among the fundamental ideas of positivist philoso-
phy we many mention belief in the essential unity of the
scientific method. To an even greater extent that the previous
principles, the meaning of this one admits of various inter-
pretations, For all of that, the idea itself is invariably present in
positivist discussion, In its most general form it expresses the
9
belief that the methods for acquiring valid knowledge, and the
main stages in elaborating experience through theoretical re-
flection, are essentially the same in all spheres of experience,
Consequently we have no reason to assume that the qualitative
differences between particular sciences come to anything more
than characteristics of a particular historical stage in the develop-
ment of science; we may expect that further progress will
gradually eliminate such differences or even, as many authors
have believed, will reduce all the domains of kuowledge to a
single science, It has often been supposed that this single science
in the proper sense of the term will be physics, on the grounds
that of all the empirical disciplines it has developed the most
exact methods of description, and that it encompasses the most
universal of the qualities and phenomena found in nature-those
without which no others occur. This assumption-that all knowl-
edge will be reduced to the physical sciences, that all scientific
statements will be translated into physical terms-does not, to be
sure, follow from the foregoing positivist rules without further
assumptions, Moreover, belief in the unity of the scientific
method can be specified in other ways as welL However, the
above-mentioned interpretation is fairly common in the history
of positivism.
Around these fonr briefly stated "rules," positivist philosophy
has built up an extensive network of theory covering all the
domains of human cognition, Defined in the most general terms,
positivism is a collection of prohibitions concerning human
knowledge, intended to confine the name of "knowledge" (or
"science") to those operations that are observable in the evolu-
tion of the modern sciences of nature, More especially, through-
out its history positivism has turned a polemical cutting edge to
metaphysical speculation of every kind, and hence against all
reflection that either cannot found its conclusions on empirical
data or formulates its judgments in such a way that they can
never be contradicted by empirical data, Tbus, according to the
positivists, both the materialist and the spiritualist interpretations
of the world make use of terms to which nothing corresponds
iu experience: it is not known how the world of our experience
would be different from what it is, were we to assume that it is
not, as materialists think, a manifestation of the existence and "'
movement of matter, or were we to assume that it is not, as the
adherents of religious denominations think, controlled by the
spiritual forces of Providence. Since neither of these assump-
tions entails consequences enabling us to predict or to describe
additional features of the world apart from what we can predict
or describe without them, there is no reason to concern our-
selves with them. Thus positivism constantly directs its criticisms
against both religious interpretations of the world and materialist
metaphysics, and tries to work out an observational position
entirely free of metaphysical assumptions. This position is con-
scionsly confined to the mles the natural sciences observe in
practice. According to' the positivists, metaphysical assumptions
serve no pnrpose in these sciences, whose aim is to fonnnlate the
interdependence of phenomena withont penetrating more deeply
into their hidden "natures" and without trvinQ; to find out
whether the world "in itself," apart from the ;o81;itive situations
in which it appears to us, has features other than those accessihle
to experience.
What sense these positivist prohibitions make in the history of
culture, what initial assnmptions they require, and how they
can be justified, as well as what kind of difficulties are associated
with accepting them-all this we will try to analyze in a final
chapter. Our main task, however, is to expound the main stages
through which modern positivist thought has passed.
CHAPTER TWO
Positivism Down to David Hume
The task we have set ourselves requires the following histori-
cal remarks:
It is possible to begin the history of European positivist
thought almost anywhere, for many strands we regard as of
primary importance in contemporary positivist doctrines had
antecedents in antiquity. There are Stoic fragments, also sur-
viving writings by skeptics and atomists, with passages that
hring vividly to mind the anti-metaphysical treatises of the
modern era. For instance, these ancient thinkers tell us that
experience enables us to ascertain whether a given ohject has
this or that appearance, b u t ~ that it is illegitimate to go on to
infer that the ohject is in reality such as it appears to be. For
example, we may say that honey appears to be sweet, but we
cannot infer from this that honey is sweet; similarly, we may
say that we experience the warmth of fire, but not that fire is
warm "in itself," etc. The main rules of that interpretation of
knowledge we call phenomenalism-which require that we dis-
tinguish between the true content of the "data" of experience
(appearances, phenomena) and such illegitimate extrapolations
from it as present the qualities we observe as qualities inherent
in "the nature of things"-had already been formulated in antiq-
uity, though in a form we must today regard as simplistic. (We
should note right here that phenomenalism does not imply that
the only objects of coguition are "psychic contents"-this belief
may be, but is not necessarily, associated with the phenomenalist
position. )
12
1. Medieval positivism. The philosophical literature of the
later Middl? Ages also cOntains many texts that may be re-
garded as gIVIng expression to a positivist view of tbe validitv
and peope of human cognition. We suppose that the emergen;e
of such Jdea,s a g.rov,ing interest in nature, in cosmoJogi-
calor physIcal InvestIgatIon, and aimed at eliminating the Aris-
totelIan metaphysical categories from the description of nature.
Although the nominalist tendency is one of the most sianificant
components in positivist ideology as a whole, and althou:h nomi-
nalism had its first flowering as early as the close of the beleventh
c.entury, this philosophy was not at first bound up with a posi-
tIVISt theory.of knowledge. It had important theological conse-
quences, servmg above all as a tool in critidzing certain theoJoai-
cal doctrines, but unlike fourteenth-century nominalism it
not yet tied in with a scientific program. of acti;e inter-
est In natural science led, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
nes, to attempts at interpreting it philosophically. In the thir-
teenth century, Roger Bacon, a Franciscan at Oxford, not only
demanded that controlled experiment be made a condition of any
knowledge worthy of the name, but also called attention to the
need for technical control over nature-i.e., he believed that the
of knowledge can be measured by the effectiveness of its
We call this point of view "pragmatist," and it
IS common in the hist?ry of positivism; simplifying somewhat,
we may say that FrancIs Bacon's well-known aphorism "Knowl-
edge itself is po "" h f '
wer, IS In t e eyes 0 positivists truer "\vhen
turned arou.nd: "Power itself is knowledge." Tm Roger Bacon,
the only rehable means of acquiring knowledge abom the world
were expenment and geometric deduction, and with this program
he assoclated dreams of technological achievements that he
hoped would come about once nature had been properly investi-
gated.
However, Roger Bacon's thought accords with positivist
only in a general way. All they really have in common
IS disparagement of methods of cognition that cannot prove
POSITIVISM DOWN TO DAVID HUME
13
theit worth by practical effect, and the demand for an empm-
cally orientated science. It should be noted here that this philos-
opher's empirical bent extended even into the religious life: he
attached an especially high value to mystical experience, as a
means of direct communication with the divine source of being
and as a "pragmatic" means of attaining the good life, though
not here and now.
The accord between experimentalism and nominalism is more
striking, and more explicit, in certain writers who, chiefly in the
second quarter of the fourteenth century, distinguished them-
selves at Paris and Oxford by their opposition to the reigning
Scholasticism. They remained virtually ignored until medieval-
ists in our Own day called attention to the originality of their
thought and began to reissue such works and fragments of
works as have come down to us. William of Ockham, the best
known of these writers, achieved philosophical fame above all
by his support of a radical nominalism, that is, a position that
falls into the innermost canon (as it were) of the positivist
style of thinking. It was he who formulated the famous rule,
which has been revived in various versions over the centuries,
known as "Ockham's razor." It says, in effect, that entities are
not to be multiplied unnecessarily: in other words, we are to
take cognizance of only so much in the world as the irrefutable
testimony of experience obliges us to take cognizance of. He
voiced this view in opposition to a metaphysics that had popu-
lated the world with a host of superfluons entities-mere words
or names without counterparts in reality. Only concrete objects
and their properties are real, William maintained. Moreover,
relations' between objects-the relation between cause and effect,
for instance-do not constitute an independent domain of being,
but are identi.cal with the objects concerned. Thus, he reduced
the Aristotelian categories to two-substance and quality-argu-
. ing that only these two refer to some sort of realities in our
world.
Ockham's thought aimed at driving out of philosophy all
'4 THE ALIENATION OF REASON
conceptual categories without counterparts in actual experience,
and hence favored a conception of knowledge as the sum total
of data that can be confirmed by experience. At the same time,
this doctrine ruled out natural theology, the discipline that
attempts to demonstrate the truth of religious revelation "by
reason alone," with the aid of arguments drawn from the data of
experience. ActuaJJy, Ockham regarded the domain of relig-ious
truth as nndeITIonstrable, as being the object of faitb he
was not hostile to religions truth, but believed it impossible
and unnecessary to prove. Thereby Ockham's nominalism con-
tributed to upholding the principle of a complete separation
between secular knowledge and religious life. This principle was
of fundamental importance in medieval intellectual culture, in
efforts to emancipate from clerical control not on Iv the whole
of knowledge, but also all spheres of secular and
cnstoms, government, politics. The aspirations of late medieval
and early modern princes to free themselves from rhe papacy-
and the eventual creation of nation-states in which there is
complete separation of Church and State-thns have some doc-
trinal foundation in the extreme nominalism of the fourteenth
century.
,
The most radical version of medieval positivism, however, was
advanced by certain Paris nominalists who were severely con-
demned by the authorities in their day, chiefly because of the
theologIcal consequences to which their theory of knowledge
would lead. We have fragments of writings by Jean de Mire-
court, a Cistercian, and by the still more radical'Nicolas d'Aurre-
court, in which a clear-cut separation between the spheres of
faIth and is carried even farther than it was by Ockham.
TheIrS 1S a crJtlque of the Scholastic theory of knowledge which
departs radIcally hom the Peripatetic tradition. According to
Jean de M,reCourt, mfallible ("self-evident") knowledge is either
reducIble to the principle of contradiction or is an acconnt of
the facts supplied by inner or outer experience. Thus he formu-
lated one version of a fundamental tenet of positivism, namely,
, '
that only analytical judgments and descriptions of immediate
experiences deserve the name of knowledge. Whatever we know
about the world on the basis of experience implies no necessity:
we cannot, by invoking the principle of contradiction, prove
that any fact is any more necessary than its negation. Among
other things, Jean de Mirecourt maintained that the divine will
is not limited by anything, or, to pur it in the langnage of
modern philosophy, that all the characteristics of the world
and its very existence are contingent and have no rationale apart
from a free divine decree. Similarly, Nicolas d'Antrecourt re-
duced infallihle knowledO'e to two kinds; one based on the
b d'
principle of identity, the other consisting of records of imme l-
ate experience. This reduction served to put in question the
concepts of substance and cause, which were fundamental to
Scholasticism. We merely observe individual causal connections,
and prediction as to their constant or regular recurrence can b.e
no more than probable; the principle of identity does not permIt
the existence of one thing to be inferred from the existence of
another. For the same reason no concatenation of observed
facts entitles uS to infer that they are linked by some under-
lying substance that is not evident to perception. Thus
concept of substance turns out to be superfluous to our deSCrip-
tion of the world, a mere terminological convention.
Considerations of this type, combined with outright crItICIsm
of Aristotelian metaphysics, obviously foreshadowed what we
have been calling the "rules" of positivism; their function is t?
discern what is absolutely reliable in our knowledge and what IS
not, to arrive at ultimate, infallible cognitive contents. All that is
reliable are the so-called infallible rules of reasoning, which are
in themselves quasi self-evident, and directly experienced data.
Any knowledge irreducible to either of these twO kinds deserves
no consideration. What we truly know is contained in analytical
judgments (which do not refer to the existence of anything)
and statements of fact. Translated into modern terminology,
such is the main epistemological conception in fourteenth-cen-
tury nominalism. The powerlessness of our reason to rise from
the natural world to the Creator with the help of inferences
from effects to cause, or by arguments from design, becomes
manifest in the light of this criticism. Natural theology practi-
cally ceases to exist, and the sphere of faith is left a matter of
faith alone, distinct from rational demonstration. The foregoing
helps ns to understand why Martin Luther found inspiration in
nominalist doctrines. The nominalist idea that faith is beyond
the scope of reason was also invoked by certain theologians
within the Church who sought to restore Augustinian teachings
and to eliminate the danger to which the Christian religion had
been exposed by Scholastics wbo, intoxicated by the force of
their own arguments, made its justification ever more dependent
on their fragile syllogisms. Others invoked nominalism in argu-
ing that empirical science should be freed from theological
supervision. However, this question does not concern us here.
We may refer to it later in connection with more recent attempts
by certain schools of theology to exploit modern positivism.
In the same period a rudimentary form of pragmatism made
its appearance alongside phenomenalism. Jean Buridan, who
served a few tenns as rector of the University of Paris and is
famous for his revolutionary attempts to overthrow Aristotelian
physics, tended to helieve that cosmological theories shonld be
interpreted in an instrumental rather tban a descriptive sense.
That is, they do not tell us anything about the nature of the
world, but provide practical cInes as to how we are to calculate
and predict the motions of the heavenly bodies. Bnridan was
active in the same period as Nicolas of Oresme, who, nearly two
centnries before Copernicns, tried to prove the daily rotation of
the earth. This is worth mentioning because, among other things,
Andreas Osiander's preface to Copernicns's work contains a
pragmatist and phenomenalist interpretation of heliocentrism:
Copernicus is presented, not as describing the actnal structnre
of the planetary system, but as advancing a hypothetical con-
struction intended to facilitate astronomical compntation. The
POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME
pragmatist interpretation of knowledge was no novelty in
Christian culture: many mystics were convinced that the human
reason can never make a truc\ a literally true, statement about
God, and that a language adequate to the created world is
ntterly inadequate to describe the absolute; they regarded the
assertions of theology as practical indications rather than doc-
trinal truths. They claimed that statements about God do not
open access to Him, but merely nrge worship and reverence:
they are norms rather than jndgments.
Thus it may be said that medieval thought gave birth .to and,
in its own language, gave expression to the fundamental ldeas of
positivism, which aim at establishing rules of meaningful knowl-
edge and confine it to analytical statements or
observations. But we must not overestimate the hlstoncal Im-
portance of this development. The majority of Scholastic "posi-
tivists" (insofar as they may be called such) exerted only a
very limited influence on the (fenerations immediately followmg.
Most of the philosophical mentioned did not come to light
until our own centnry. The nominalist tradition was ah:orbed
into Renaissance philosophy, but in a different form;
Middle Ages, nominalism was important primarily as one
cant phase in attacks upon the Aristotelians and. a doctt1l1e
containing explicitly or implicitly the theory of decretal-
ism, and thereby encouraging a return to St. Augnst1l1e s doctr1l1e
of grace. The last-named qnestion, central to the doctnnal
evolntion of Christianity in the epoch of the ReformatIOn
the Counter-Reformation, is only very loosely connected WIth
the positivist theory of knowledge. . . . .
The Renaissance itself was not a POSItlVlst penod. It was
marked by an avid search for knowledge, rather than any
search for rules whereby to restrain the operations of the hnman
mind; it made lavish use of its hard-won freedom from ScholastIC
forms of philosophy and from Scholastic terminology. The 111-
tellectual climate was the opposite of ascetic in the matter. of
knowledge, as also in matters of art and morals. The nch
IS THE ALIENATION OF REASON
variety of literary styles in which philosophy now expressed
itself went hand in hand with a loosening of the rules of proof
and a retnrn to rhetorical modes of argnment. The infinite
diversity of natme, its countless facets, its miracnlous plasticity,
and its unlimited potentialities were pondered and investigated
with the greatest eagerness. The world was seen to be populated
with a host of mysteries-mysterious forces of natme whose
secrets were probed by alchemists and magicians, mysterious
non-human creatnres and other enigmatic phenomena described
by natnralists. The mystery of godhead appeared to deepen,
now that pantheist thinkers arose to point out that the divine
activity and the very existence of the Creator are contrary to
the rules of logic; this tended to limit the validity of logic. The
revival of Platonism inspired both spiritualists who expressed
contempt for matter and natnralists who spoke with tireless
enthusiasm of matter's creativity. Although empiricism or ex-
perimentation flowered as never before, this development had
little in common with positivist programs: the aim was to get
at "the thing in itself," understood not as "substance" in the
traditional sense, but as the primordial hidden "power" that
Natnre diffuses through her various creations.
, 2. Positivist strands in the seventeenth century. In marked
contrast, the development of positivist thought in the seven-
teenth centnry is very clear and closely bonnd up with the birth
of modern mechanics. Galileo's thought cannot be interpreted
in its entirety as an expression of the positivist program: histo-
rians have stressed the importance of the Platonic background as
well. All the same, in one essential respect, Galileo founded a
conception of science that may be called characteristically posi-
tivist, which became dominant in the seventeenth century and
largely determined the division of intellectnal Europe into two
camps. Galileo was the first to formulate, at least in so clear a
form, the phenomenalist program for knowledge as opposed to
the traditional interpretation of the world in terms of substantial
forms. Previons descriptions of reality had attributed the canses
POSITIVISM DOVVN TO DAVID HUME 19
of observed phenomena to non-empirical "natures" ("heavi-
ness," for example, as the cause of the fall of bodies). Now it
beO'an to be recognized that such a way of thinking has no
b .
cognitive value; the Unatures" arc words "without meanmg, not
tnte explanations of the phenomena. The task of science is not
to go on multiplying these "natures" and their gnalitative
"forms," but to snpply quantitative descriptions of measurable
phenomena. One essential element in this approach was Galileo's
conviction that, although mechanics must continnally appeal to
experiment, its assertions do not refer to the results of actually
condncted experiments, but to processes taking place nnder
ideal conditions which cannot actnally be reproduced (e.g.,
the motion of a projectile that does not have to overcome the
resistance of the air). Such ideal conditions can be envisaged
with the aid of geometric models. Galileo achieved his results
by going beyond empirical approaches. and recognizing the
importance of idealization in science. There were many en-
thusiastic followers of the new science in the seventeenth cen-
tnry who failed to assimilate this particnlar aspect of his method
and, in their struggle against the epigones of Scholasticism, laid
exclnsive emphasis upon experimentation in' the belief that
physics is merely the record of actually condncted
However, they failed to achieve important results, at least ill
mechanics.
The intellectnal life of Europe in Galileo's day and the
period immediately following was defined by a much deeper
division or split of the learned world into factions: for and
against "substantial forms," for and against the new phenomenal-
ist-minded science. Despite disputes and differences among
themselves, scientists in the seventeenth century felt that they
were nonetheless united in opposition to the older, more con-
servative tradition-not just the part represented by Scholasti-
cism, but also that represented by Renaissance natnralism-and
that their common stand was defined by their acceptance of
Galileo's physics. One of the most active propagators of the
new science was Marin Mersenne, dubbed "the secretary of
learned Europe" because of the very extensive relations he
maintained with all the important scholars and scientists of the
period. Mersenne reconciled his orthodox Catholicism with the
new physics the more readily because both were of use to him
in fighting the same adversary-the Italian pantheistic naturalists,
the astrologers, the alchemists, and the adepts of occult sciences
generally. Mersenne's writings contain the general ontline of a
phenomenalist physics: quantitative, mechanistic, anti-metaphys-
icaL According to him, scientific knowledge consists in the
quantitative organization of observed phenomena and makes no
metaphysical claims; it does not seek to inform us about "the
nature of things," but to gain an exact quantitative knowledge of
the phenomenal world, a knowledge sufficient for man's practical
exploitation of that world. What lies beyond the domain of
observed pbenomena is the object of faith, and here religious
authority is decisive. Thanks to this sharp separation between
metaphysical questions and scientific knowledge, Mersenne, like
many another of his learned contemporaries, was able to retain
his religious beliefs without coming into conflict with natural
science; nor did his positivist interpretation of knowledge lead
him-as it has led so many latter-day positivists-to give up his
metaphysical convictions. What he renounced was any and all
attempts to justify the latter rationally, either on the basis of
experience or on other "rational" principles.
A similar type of seventeenth-century positivism is repre-
sented by Gassendi. In his first treatise (,624), directed against
the Aristoteliaus, he demonstrated the futility of metaphysical
speculation and the unreliability of rational theology. According
to him, all knowledge worth acquiring will always and in-
evitably be imperfect, though not thereby unproductive of re-
sults. What we truly know on the basis of our natural means of
cognition cannot go beyond probability, nor can such knowledge
lay claim to discovering the "nature" of the world or the
"essence" of things. At the same time, however, it suffices for
,;
)
POSITIVISM DOWN TO DAVID HUME 21
practical purposes, though it is always open to criticism and
~ "
runs the risk of being sooner or later refuted.
Gassendi's doctrine reflects a spirit of modesty ilL the making
of intellectual claims which was a general characteristic of the
French libertines and one essential factor in the development of
modern positivism. Weare not to ask questions that by definition
cannot be answered with the aid of means accessible to man-
questions about God, about the underlying nature of the uni-
verse, abom the invisible world. As for matters subject to the
verdict of natural kuowledge, we are not to regard any results
achieved as indisputable or irrevocable, but are to keep our
minds open to the possibility of different solutions and correction
in the light of future experience. These rules, which have today
become commonplaces in scientific thinking, at the time added
up to a kind of ascetic defiance addressed to every sort of
speculative philosopher of nature and to all metaphysicians-
materialist as well as religious-who organized the world into
non-empirical structures of no use to natural science. It must be
, stressed once again that this program, like that of the medieval
positivists, was not intended to do away with religious faith, but
only to change its cognitive status. Or, as the learned men of the
time believed, it was intended to restore religious faith to its
original status. Faith cannot be transformed into knowledge, and
this is an additional reason why we must not straitjacket science
in religious directives; the paths of the two virtually never cross,
and hence the Christian and the scientific attitudes can co-exist
peacefully, provided they are clearly distinguished the one from
the other. Not all who drew this distinction, however, always'
interpreted it in the same sense. Some really were concerned
with removing all religious questions from the field of vision of
rationally thinking people and either refrained from taking any
religious position themselves or actually looked upon this princi-
ple of separation as a safe way to formulate their own unbelief.
Others found in the same principle a safeguard of religious
faith against scientific criticism-a criticism unavoidable so long
as religious truths were treated as scientific assertions and their
content made subject to rational control. The most widespread
attitude in the period, perhaps, was represented by those who
reduced religious faith to the basic beliefs held in common by
all the denominations of Christianity: in God, in Providence,
and in the immortality of the soul. All the more specific ques-
tions concerning the exact nature of God and how He governs
the world were recognized as riddles beyond the power of the
human mind to solve. Such an attitude, conrrnon in learned
circles at that time, made it possible to remove religious ques-
tions from intellectual activity while yet upholding the main
elements of the Christian faith. It allowed one to practice
tolerance and to view religious dissension and doctrinal dispute
as pointless and futile. This style of thinking considerably
reduced the importance of denominational differences in the
intellectual world and so furthered scientific collaboration, per-
sonal friendship, and the exchange of ideas among members of
different faiths. Denominational differences were relegated to the
secondary spheres of custom or legality; the fact of belonging
to one or another church had no more importance than follow-
ing one or another fashion and ceased to play any part in
people's general outlook. Thus, in the seventeenth century,
positivism gradually came to be linked with dogmatic indif-
ferentism, with an over-all anti-metaphysical and anti-theological
orientation in science, but not as yet with atheism or passionate
concern for religious reform.
This new climate of opinion fnrthered moderation in the
assessment of scientific knowledge. Science does not disclose
infallible trnths about the nature of being but schematizes actual
experience in a way that makes possible its technical exploita-
tion. On this score, the libertine program seems to have come
closest to positivism in the seventeenth century, for it implied
renunciation of the hope that science could ever provide us
with information concerning the necessity allegedly implied in
the empirical regularities we observe. Let us not ask what the
POSITIVISM DO\.VN TO DAVID HUME 23
world must necessarily be, let us not deceive ourselves that the
laws we discover imply any absolute necessity: they merely tell
us how things in fact are, never that they could not be otherwise.
Within the scientific description of the world, positivism thus
lays bare the essential, irremediable contingency of all the
properties of nature that are accessible to reason and experience.
Admittedly, this intellectual modesty was not particularly frnit-
ful of scientific results. Gassendi and the other pheuomenalists
deserve full credit as propagators of the new science and for
their criticism of the older Scholastic and natnralistic meta-
physics, but their actual scientific achievements were modest, or
at least far more mod,st than those of other scientists. The
latter, no less inspired by the ideals of the new science and
similarly contemptuous of explanations of the world in terms of
sllbstantial forms, clung to metaphysical aspirations and hoped
by their investigations to discover the ultimate basis of the uni-
verse.
From the point of view discussed here, neithet Descartes nor
Lcibuiz (any more than Galileo) was a positivist, althongh both
sbared the positivist conviction that interpretation of the world
by unseen faculties or forces, inaccessible to empirical investiga-
t i ~ ) l l , is absurd. We must not leave room for the operation of
inexplicable forces in the ordinary course of nature, as Leibniz
put it; otherwise we might end up with explanations according
to which clocks show the hour becanse of some "horodeictic"
faculty, and mills grind flour becanse of some "fractionating"
capacity. Descartes and Leibniz believed that science should
divest the world of mystery, should filJ the gaps in our cognition
with real knowledge, not mask our ignorance with purely verbal
formulas. Though he clung to the concept of substance,
Descartes tried to characterize it in such a way that it lost its
old mysteriousness: matter, or extended substance, is nothing
but extension, and the soul, or thinking substance, is nothing
but thinking. There is no "nature" hidden behind the actually
observed qualities of things, reference to which accounts for
anything whatever. A thing is no more or less than that which
can be observed in it, comes to no more or less than the sum
total of its observable gualities. Although Descartes did not
carry this position to its ultimate conseguences, and was not
perfectly consistent in asserting it, it certainly is in line with the
positivist program. At the same time, Descartes and Leibniz were
both very far from tnrning their backs on metaphysical problems
or from abandoning inguiry into the necessary attributes of
being. In contrast to the phenomenalists who saw in the con-
tingent character of experience evidence that the entirety of our
knowledge is irrevocably uncertain, Descartes tried to overcome
this contingency and to discover truths that can be accepted as
absolutely necessary and that yet are not purely analytic in
character. According to him, the very deceptiveness of empirical
knowledge, the lack of any kind of necessity in its contents,-
and the fact that it does not enable us to arrive at any sure
existential assertion (since even the existence of the material
world is not self-evident on the basis of direct perception),
oblige us to tnrn elsewbere in our guest for infallible criteria of
knowledge. Hence Descartes' belief that mathematics (more
precisely, the model of deductive knowledge to be found in
Euclid's Elements) has universal application in science, and
that only with its help will we be able to construct a science of
nature not exposed to the uncertainties of empirical knowledge
-a belief rooted in his striving for "necessary" truths, without
which he felt no knowledge is worthy of the name. According
to him, the fundamental laws of mo#on and collisions between
bodies can be discovered independently of experience, by care-
ful analysis of the concepts of extension, body, motion, resist-
ance, etc.
Thus, if mere negation of non-phenomenal "essences" suf-
ficed to earn a thinker the title "positivist," Descartes (like
Leibniz) would be a full-fledged representative of the tradition.
But because, at least in the light of the development of positiv-
ism over the last two centuries, this criterion can hardly be
POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME 25
considered sufficient, Descartes can be called a POSltlVlst only
with serious reservations. For also essential to positivism is the
conviction that knowledge is "necessary" only to the extent that
it is analytic in character; in other words, the knowledge that
deserves to be called "necessary" is not, properly speaking,
knowledge about the world, but a collection of tautologies,
propositions wbose truth is guaranteed by the mere meanings of
the terms used, reguiring no experimental criteria for confirma-
tion and not even benefiting from such as might be supplied.
By the same token, "necessary" knowledge tells us nothing
about what the world is really like, in particular contains no
existential judgments, and does not refer to factual processes
taking place in the world. On the contrary, in the eyes of
Descartes, only that knowledge is valuable that does not merely
tell us that something in fact takes place, but that something
must necessarily take place. Sucb knowledge can be achieved,
but by non-empirical methods, and according to him even ex-
istential judgments may have an analytic character, as evidenced
by the ontological proof for the existence of God. This proof
amounts to the assertion that God's existence is an a priori truth,
i.e., it can be established by mere analysis of the idea of God as
the being endowed with all possible perfections (and hence
with existence, since existence is a perfection). Also, Descartes'
philosophical interests are in complete contrast to positivist
programs for knowledge: metaphysical guestions concerning
God, creation, and the immaterial soul occupy a leading place in
his meditations and are by no means treated as objects of pure
faith, but, on the contrary, as objects of crucial "rational"
aTgumentation.
The above remarks apply to an even greater extent to Leibniz,
who was just as hostile to Scholastic and naturalistic interpreta-
tions of tbe world, and who sought-even more stubbornly
than Descartes-to devise methods of ~ t o g n i t i o n capable of bring-
ing to light necessary reasons for all the world's gualities and its
very existence. Since all empirical knowledge is burdened with
contingency, and hence no statement that is a negation of a
factual statement contains any internal contradiction (that it is
raining we can verify by observation, but the assertion that it is
not raining is not self-contradictory, for onr statement is "in
itself" contingent), thus no accumulation of such knowledge
will produce any kind of necessity. Discovery of causal con-
nections does not abolish this contingency, for the conditions
we may empirically discover to account for any contingent fact
are just as contingent as the fact itself. At the same time onr
thinking is governed by the principle of sufficient reason, which
implies that every contingent statement has a necessary founda-
tion; from a certain sufficiently broad point of view, contingency
is a mark of the imperfection of our knowledge. Because the
very existence of the world is contingent-i.e., because the
assumption that the world does not exist or that it is entirely
different from the actually existing world is not self-contradic-
tory-we can do away with the contingency of existence and
meet the requirements of the principle of sufficient reason only
by assuming a Being whose' existence is identical with its
essence-that is, God. Viewed from God's point of view, the
world loses its contingency and discloses that what seems to us
contingent is actually necessary, just as the analytic truths of
geometry seem necessary to us.
We mention these philosophers in order to set clearer bounda-
ries to what can be called positivist philosophy and its historical
development. In the light of the foregoing, the cognitive pro-
gram closest to larter-day positivism was formulated in the
seventeenth centnry by Gassendi, although it wonld be going
too far to call him a positivist without reservations. According
to him, though metaphysical truths are undemonstrable, they
eujoy real status in our total image of the world, not merely as
decorative additions, but as truths in the literal sense. They are
much truer than the resnlts of science, which are inevitably
uncertain and have a pragmatic, rather than a cognitive, valne.
Noteworthy in the seventeenth century were attempts to
develop Cartesianism in a phenomenalist and positivist spmt,
but in peculiar conjunction with a theological doctrine clearly
fatalistic in tendency. We refer to the Cartesians whose doctrine
is known as "occasionalism." This was based on the Cartesian
theory according to which there can be no causal relation
between spiritual substances and physical objects. From this
premise the occasionalists inferred that the contents of onr
observations are not caused by some peculiar conformation with
the physical world that is commonly believed to lie before us
and somehow enters our consciousness via the senses. More than
that, physical objects cannot interact causally, for by their nature
they are incapable of action. Consequently, any correspondence
whatever between the contents of human knowledge and the
observed world, as well as the entire system of relations we
discern in the world, derives not from any order inherent in
nature, but can only be the result of repeated interventions by
Providence. They alone keep the system in operation: what we
take for the natural cause is only the "occasional" cause, in the
sense that it comes down to the occasion on which God prodnces
what we t ~ k e for a natural effect. God alone is responsible for
the fnnctioning of the universe. He sees to it that the connections
between events remain constant and that the contents of onr
impressions correspond to their objective counterparts. God
Himself would be incapable of assigning these functions to
secondary causes, since He could not change matter into spirit
withont abolishing it as matter. Thus we are entitled to assert a
permanent order in the world, but we are not entitled to assume
that it is a property of the world itself, since it is actually
acconnted for solely by the divine decisions being carried out at
every moment in the existence of the universe. From this doc-
trine it follows, first, that hnman fate is entirely independent of
human will, for we cannot by our own unaided wishes so much
as move a finger or disturb a grain of sand; second, that onr
knowledge of nature does not disclose an order immanent in it,
but merely perceives external manifestations of God's steadfast-
ness; third, that all Scholastic explanations of natural phenomena
by forces or faculties inherent in nature itself are superfluous;
and fourth, that any kind of worship of nature or admiration of
her works is always idolatry due to ignorance-since the physi-
cal world in its entirety does not possess enough power to move
a single leaf on a single tree.
Occasionalism represented a radical attempt to destroy the
seventeenth-century belief in a natural order of things, and at
the same time to draw the ultimate consequences from Cartesian
opposition to Scholasticism. It reduced human cognition to the
observation of individual phenomena, maintaining that their reg-
ularities are not inherent in nature itself. Clearly, such a phenom-
enalism cannot be regarded as a positivist interpretation of
the world in the literal sense. It implied belief in divine
omnipotence, in accounting for the order of nature, and belief
in the existence of a substantial human subject wholly free from
physical, spatial determinations. All the same it formulated in its
own way one of the constitutive ideas of positivism: all "neces-
sary" jndgments are inferences "from the essence," all existential
judgments are "contingent." In the language of the age, this
expresses a conviction that all human knowledge (apart from
Revelation) is divided into analytic judgments, which supply no
information concerning the reality of the objects they refer to,
and factual statements, which tell us nothing about "essences,"
"b"" .,
Sll stances, necessary connectIOns,) uforces," "causes," etc.
Berkeley's thought took the same direction, and his conclu-
sions were even more extreme. He concentrated on clearly
separating those contents that are in fact present in our per-
ceptions from those that have been illegitimately introduced
into them. His analyses showed that the latter kind of contents
include the existence of matter. If we try to state accurately
what is the nature of any "given," it will turn out that it
consists of qualities, and that we have no reason to assert these
are qualities of some otherwise unobservable physical object.
The over-all accord in human perception can be accounted
for by divine guidance and does not require, even as a hypothesis,
the existence of a material substrate mysteriously hidden under-
neath the phenomena. This does not mean, of course, that to
Berkeley physical objects exist "in us," in the sense that they are
merely parts of individual human minds. Berkeley pursued two
aims: first, to eliminate from cognition everything that is not
indispensable to its interpretation (this is why being has no
meaning apart from perception and "to be" is identical with
"to be perceived"), and second, to do away with the atheistic
conception of the world according to which natural forces of
themselves account adequately for the totality of the visible
world. (Since no independent, "absolute" reality is contained in
the cognitive material accessible to us, the enduring character of
the world and the existence of many subjects are unintelligible
unless we assume a divine absolute.) Berkeley emphatically
differs from the positivists in his denial of the existence of
matter, for according to them every metaphysical assertion is as
meaningless as its denial, and he also differs from them in that
his empiricism goes so far as to deny the validity of analytic
judgments. According to him, even the assertions that were
looked upon as the impregnable bastion of any "necessary"
knowledge-namely, the propositions of arithmetic and geome-
try-originate in experience, and not merely in the sense that
they cannot be formulated, but also in the sense that they
cannot be proved without reference to experience. In other
words, they have the same character as all other empirical
generalizations. However, Berkeley's attitude toward the physics
of his time closely resembles that of latter-day positivist method-
ologists: he says that the term "attraction," which is supposed to
account for a great many physical and chemical processes, is no
more than an abbreviated description of the regularities it is
supposed to account for. In itself, it adds nothing to our knowl-
edge of the regularities observed in nature, a knowledge acquired
by other means.
3. The positivism of the Enlightenment. The philosophers of
the French Enlightenment criticized Berkeley. Though it cannot
he said that they restored to nature the order and intelligence he
had taken away from it. they did restore its independent exist-
ence. They criticized him. however, on the basis of the same
initial assnmptions: to prove the existence of a real physical
world ontside ourselves, we have to refer to specific experiences
that can be acconnted for only as the action of external ohjects
npon ourselves. According to Condillac, the experience of ex-
ternal resistance is snfficient for this pnrpose. At the same time
the philosophes maintained that man is nnahle to attain any
knowledge of "snhstances" that are inaccessible to immediate
experience; on this score they followed Locke, their main an-
thority in the theory of knowledge. Neither matter nor spirit
will ever appear before our eyes and give np their secrets. This
philosophy restored the reality of the world of snbstances, which
Berkeley had destroyed, bnt only in order to proclaim that they
are nnknowable. The worship of science was giving birth to the
worship of "facts"-a notion not yet serionsly qnestioned-but
the same worship of science demanded that the qualitative
diversity of nature be rednced to a hypothetical unityc Attempts
in this direction inevitably went beyond the phenomenalist pro-
gram. Repeatedly, there was reconrse to more or less risky
hypotheses concerning matter's necessary properties. Both the
occasionalist and the Berkeleyan interpretations of knowledge
had grown out of the doctrine that radically opposes human
existence to the physical world; hath were hased on an image
of spiritual man intelligible only as alien from nature. The
. Enlightenment, on the other hand, attempted a total integration
of man in his natural environment. This is why phenomenalism
meant something different in each case. The first kind of
phenomenalism songht to drive a wedge between man-as-spirit
and his ties with nature; the second, on tbe contrary, accepted
the phenomenal world as a world forged to the measure of man,
and saw in perception that which links mankind with nature.
No donht there are limitations of hnman knowledge, but only to
3
1
the extent that man's existence and capacities for perception are
limited.
Although the typical thinkers of the French Enlightenment
cautioned intellectual restraint when it came to purely metaphys-
ical questions, they did so in no spirit of agnostic melancholy,
nor did they mean to encourage disbelief in reason. On the
contrary, they taught tbat within the range of experience accessi-
ble to man it is possible to discover, or at least to sense, a basic
order and to achieve certainry in matters of vital importance. It
is possible for ns to determine nature's demands and to discover
means for fulfilling them by organizing collective life rationally.
Empiricism was embraced as a challenge to mankind to address
itself to questions and tasks within its capacities, those that
entail neither metaphysical debate nor religious soul-searching.
Such debate, such sonl-searching, were felt to be unproductive
of knowledge and socially and morally harmfnl.
4. David Hume. However, the Enlightenment gave birth to a
doctrine. that, carrying the premises of empiricism to their
nltimate consequences, disclosed a certain incompatibility be-
tween those premises and the intentions that inspired them,
and so led to the destrucrion (or self-destrnction) of all the
hopes the Enlightenment had pinned on experience and common
sense. The author of this docttine was David Hnme, one of the
most brilliant minds the modern era has produced, and at the
same time the real father of positivist philosophy-chronologi-
cally the first thinker we may call positivist without any of the
reservations we have to make with reference to earlier thinkers.
The actual meaning of Hume's philosophy has repeatedly
given rise to discussion. We will pass over controversial ques-
tions, however, and confine ourselves to snmming np those of
his leading ideas that may be regarded as characteristically
positivist in his philosophy. In this we merely follow the
standard, jf not stereotyped picture of Hume long since familiar
in the history of philosophy.
Hnme was the opposite of a learned pedant. He was a man
of letters primarily, but he was not one to express his thought
in rambling fashion or to fail to supply solid arguments for his
views. Questions that interested him he formulated with ex-
traordinary clarity, and he weighed the possible answers without
unnecessary rhetorical flourishes. When his thought is oc-
casionally ambiguous-as in the Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion-the ambiguity is deliberate and constructive, not the
product of clumsiness or confusion. There is hard intellectual
work behind every sentence he wrote, and his writings touch
on everything of importance in the intellectual life of his time.
He was possessed of universal curiosity, yet he also held the
conviction that to determine the limits of human knowledge is a
matter of practical importance, for a sense of such limits liberates
us from superfluous questions, discussion of which too readily
degenerates into bitter dispute and makes it impossible to bring
order and clarity into every sphere of human life.
Hume divides "the perceptions of the mind" into two classes,
distinguished "by their different degrees of force and vivacity,"
as he puts it. The first are "impressions," or immediately ex-
perienced contents, "all onr more lively perceptions, when we
hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will." The
s e c ~ n d are "ideas," the less lively perceptions, rooted in memory
or Imagination. Ideas derive entirely from impressions, even are
"copies" of them, as may be seen for instance from the fact that
any defect in an organ that receives impressions makes a man
incapable of grasping the corresponding ideas. ("A Laplander or
~ Negro bas no notion of the relisb of wine.") Every simple idea
IS a correspondent or a faded copy of a simple impression;
composite ideas-figments of the imagination, for instance-are
combinations of contents known to us from impressions (a
golden mOllntain, a virtuous borse). More particularly, no gen-
eral ideas-as, incidentally, Berkeley had already shown-exist in
the mind if they designate contents devoid of any individualizing
features. Ideas are individnal, only the words linked witb them
POSITIVISM DOVVN TO DAVID HU1\1E 33
make it possihle to associate one given idea with a nnmber of
similar ones.
Now, any operation of the understanding deals either with
relations between ideas or with matters of fact. Among the
relations between ideas, there are some that we can study
without referring to anything outside themselves, more espe-
cially without referring to observation: these are the relations of
resemblance, opposition, degree of the quality possessed, and
quantitative proportions. Study of snch relations is the real
ohject of the mathematical sciences and affords a knowledge
that is wholly certain but tells us nothing about the existence
of what it refers to. The assertion, "Three times five is egual to
the half of thirty" remains valid quite apart from the existence
or non-existence of the ohjects counted. It is absolutely true, but
it tells us nothing about the existence of anything. This is the
exact character of all mathematical propositions: they are sure
because they are self-evident or because they have been legiti-
mately inferred from self-evident propositions.
The relations of identity, of contignity in time or space, and
of cause and effect have a different character. Contiguity in
time and space can he ascertained without going beyond the
facts themselves: knowledge of this kind belongs to the domain
of immediate perception. Not so in the case of propositions
concerning the causal nexus between events. In this domain we
must go beyond observation, and the legitimacy of this step
became for Hume a problem that he recognized as especially
significant. In the struggle against philosophical prejudice, also
error in ordinary reasoning, he ascribed the greatest importance
to solving this problem.
According to Hume, all judgments concerning matters of
fact, in contrast to mathematical propositions, tell us something
about existence: they assert the presence of a certain event, hut
at the same time they imply no kind of necessity. That some-
thing is taking place in this way or that way, we can perceive
directly, bnt we observe no necessity in its taking place in just
34
this way and no other. John has a crooked nose, yct the
supposition that John's nose is straight is not self-contradictory.
But are there any propositions within the domain of observation,
that, withont losing their empirical character, could tell us more
about the world than that something appears to us in this way or
that way at a given moment? In other words, is there a sphere of
knowledge in which the necessity characteristic of mathematical
knowledge is associated with the reality of its contents?
Now we see why the question concerning the legitimacy of
propositions involving the invariability of causal relations is so
important. For such propositions are generally believed to com-
bine two cognitive features regarded as eminently valuable,
which otherwise appear only separately: reality and necessity.
Unlike mathematical propositions, they are supposed to tell us
something about the real world and at the same time to imply a
character of necessity distinguishing them from ordinaw state-
ments of fact. The possibility of such propositions is of para-
mount epistemological importance, for it determines the mean-
ing we are to ascribe to those scientific propositions that we
usually call "laws," and that, according to Hume, take the form
of propositions stating necessary causal relations.
Hume's analysis of this question produced the most uncom-
promising, unequivocal results. In propositions about causes we
predict that a certain event will take place on the basis of an-
other event. Clearly, such knowledge is not gained through
mere analysis of the terms involved; the well-known maxim
tbat "Whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence"
cannot be regarded as valid on the basis of its intuitive self-
evidence, nor on that of the very meaning of the terms used. It
is thus in contrast to such a proposition, for instance, as that
two straight lines have no segment in commou. The latter
proposition cannot even be grounded experimentally, for no
geometric projection is ever so exact as not to arouse doubts,
were we on the basis of it alone to make statements about the
permanent properties of plane figures and solids. However, the
35
very ideas involved in such propositions are a sufficient guarantee
of their truth. On the other hand, from our knowledge about
certain properties of things we cannot draw necessary inferences
concerning their other properties, such as might be alleged to
follow from the first: a stone left without support falls to the
ground, but nothing in the stone's situation tells us a priori that
the stone, once we remove its support, will move downward
rather than upward; from the ligbt and warmth of a fire we
cannot infer that it will consume us. Thus it is clear that the
connection between cause and effect can be known only by
experience, never a priori. In turn, direct observation teaches us
that certain events are associated, but tlus association implies nO
necessary connection. A cause may be defined as "an object
precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that
the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the
other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea
of the other." Inferences as to cause-effect relations are thus
based solely on the expectation that certain specific events will
be followed by other specific events, and this expectation is
rooted in habit. All we may say is that a given object has
always been associated with a given result, but there are no
rules that would permit us properly to infer that the same
result must always be associated with similar objects. The ground
of conjunction between events is not revealed in experience; all
that is disclosed to us is the conjunction itself. This explains
psychologically why we believe that the causal nexus is neces-
sary-it is a habit rooted in association-but for that very
reason refutes the belief. The necessity is in our minds only, not
in the things themselves.
Analysis of our beliefs concerning "substance" leads to simi-
larly destructive conclusions. Here too, as Berkeley had already
shown, we pass illegitimately from the conjunction of certain
observed qualities to belief in the existence of an unobservable
permanent "substratum" of those qualities, essentially different
from them. In reality, Hume says, "substance" denotes an
aggregate of individual qualities, nor do we actually ascribe
any other meaning to the term "suhstance" when we speak or
think about it. More than that, this observation applies not only
to physical substances, such as were the object of Berkeley's
criticism, but also to spiritual substances. No "substantial self" is
given us in our impressions, no particular experience discloses
tbat they have a permanent vehicle or medium, and all we
know about the "soul" can be readily reduced to our knowledge
of individual perceptions. TIle "self" is a superfluous hypothesis,
for it accounts for nothing in ohservation that we would not
know without it.
The philosophical implications of this criticism are characteris-
tic of all later schools of positivism which, just as H ume did,
turn a polemically cutting edge to realist metaphysics and
religious metaphysics alike. According to Hume, criticism of
the concepts of cause and suhstance bids us suspend all judg-
ment concerning the existence of anything different from per-
ceived qualities. The same criticism destroys irrevocably every
attempt to find in nature something on the basis of which to
make inferences concerning a divine intelligence ordering it.
Hume's writings contain a very extensive critique of religious
belief; here, it will be sufficient to mention that it is directed not
only against all a priori proofs for the existence of God, but
also against all argaments based on causality or the existence of a
rational order in nature. The absurdity of the ontological proof
is merely one particular case of the absurdity that characterizes
all attempts to prove the existence of anything a priori, not to
mention the fact that even if this proof were valid, it would not
tell us anything about God's presence in the world, His activity
as lts creator, as guardian and source of love-and hence would
be irrelevant to those truths upon which every religion is based.
Nor do proofs of God's existence derived from the order of
the v i s i ~ l e world have greater force. Whatever reasons we may
adduce 111 favor of His existence, we can never get away from
the principle that the cause ought to be proportionate to the
POSITIVISM DOvVN TO DAVID HUME
37
effect. Following this principle it is impossible to infer the
infiuite attributes of God from finite things; it could more
reasonably be invoked to prove on the hasis of the world's
imperfections the imperfection of God. More generally, correct
understanding of causality rules out any kind of demonstration
in this domain, for if we stay within experience we should be
able to avail ourselves of at least a certain number of constantly
observable cases in which an analogous relation obtains. Nor
can we determine how the universe was fanned: to do this we
should have to know many worlds and the conditions under
which they had been created. But the universe is one, by
definition: it encompasses "all," and we cannot reaSon about it
by analogy. That the world as a whole is "contingent" in the
sense that its existence requires the assumption of a non-con-
tingent Being, namely, one whose essence implies existence,
cannot in any way be proved by experience. What reasons,
then, are left upon which to base religious conviction? Hume
ostensibly resorts to the well-tested method of defense by
capitulation: he says-and the theme recurs several times in his
writings-that religion, though resisting all rational, aprioristic,
or experimental attempts to demonstrate its truth, has its legiti-
mate place thanks to the needs of. the human heart. We may
keep our faith qua faith, though we must renounce as hopeless
all attempts to transform it into knowledge.
Obviously, such an attitude is not new in the long history of
The Reason vs Faith controversy. Hume, however, carries his
reflectioo further. There is nothing mysterious about the
phenomenon of faith or people's need for it, nor about the
"reasons of the heart" appealed to by desperate defenders of
anti-rational religion. The origins of all this can be traced:
when we study the history of religious beliefs and discover
their embryonic forms, we find that religion is accountable
for by the natural conditions of human existence and is merely
a kind of infinite hope born of the wretchedness of finite
hopes. In the end it turns out that a rational religion is im-
possible, and an emotional or more generally irrational religion
is accountable for by natural causes. Are we, despite this fact,
i.e., despite the fact that we know its natural origins, entitled
as rational beings to enjoy its benefits? It would seem that
Hume's answer to this question is negative, at least when we
carefully compare his various statements on the subject. In other
words, Hume does not confine himself to suspending judgment
in the matter of religious belief, but leaves man without any
solace, intellectual or affective, any sanctuary where such beliefs
would have a legitimate place. His positivism thus does not
advocate that we refrain from all judgment pertaining to our
view of the world, but admits negative judgments concerning
every kind of extra-natural reality.
5 The destructive consequences of Hume's work. Just how
Hume was understood and the snbseqnent use made of his
analyses have depended upon whether his thinking was accepted
only in part-most often, only the critical part-or in all its
implications. The probabilistic conception of knowledge and
abandonment of the search for "necessary" causes in science
have certainly owed a great deal to Hume's criticism. Actually,
however, his criticism had more in view than just the exposure
of metaphysical fictions that, instead of accounting for the
phenomena, invent names. Critics of Hume have long since
pointed out that his genetic explanations invoke the same princi-
ple of causality that he himself declares unreliable. He does not
confine himself to proving the illegitimacy of the concept of a
necessary cause, or of religious ideas, but goes on to account for
the origin of the concept, the origin of those ideas, by their
causes. Thus he elucidates phenomena by assuming ~ h e in-
variability of effects in human psychic life, having previously
included the latter in the domain of nature where inferences as
to the invariability of certain relations arrived at by analogy with
observed relations have no demonstrative force. Hume himself
was not concerned with this inconsistency in his own thought
and made no attempt to correct it. However, certain of his
reflections suggest that his cognitive program did not consist
merely in stripping our knowledge about the world of ahsolute
value, nor merely in adding a coefficient of uncertainty to all we
claim to know. It seems he was aware of the fact that consistent
application of his criticism must lead to fundamental, radical
skepticism. His critique of causality implies that the constancy
with wbicb a concatenation of observations OCCU1'S in no way
increases the probability tbat it will occur again. When we
observe a certain connection between events in only a few cases,
while observing another connection in a very large number of
cases, we have stronger psychological motives for recognizing
the second connection as invariable and "necessary," but no
stronger groundS for doing so. Consequently, what can be
really asserted beyond all doubt is limited to individual ac-
counts of immediate observations; assumptions concerning the
nature of the world "given" in those observations, whether
touching its reality or the nature of the observing subject, are
excluded. It is easy to see that in this conception of knowledge,
that which we truly Imow is utterly barren and unproductive,
whereas that which helps us to live, to create a science, and
enrich our store of information generally is nO longer knowledge
in the proper sense of the term. In the last analysis, according to
Burne, there is no snch thing as rational knowledge about the
world: this is expressed in his saying that the reason we al'e
convinced that fire warms and water cools is that the opposite
conviction would lead to suffering. t
Thus we may conclude that Hume's criticism does not merely
amount to a dramatic destruction of the cognitive ideals of the
Enlightenment-a destruction achieved by his attempt to formu-
late them fully. By his rejection of the legitimacy of inductive
reasoning-and such was the actual consequence of his radical
criticism of causality-Hnme lessened the cognitive value of
all knowledge other than descriptions of individually given
observable qualities. Every kind of knowledge that goes beyond
such description, however indispensable to life, is valuable only
because we cannot do without it, not because it tells us what the
world is really like, still less what it is, and still less what it is
exactly. The meaning of knowledge thus becomes purely prag-
matic, knowledge turns out to be a collection of guidelines,
useful and indispensable in practice, but devoid of cognitive
value. We must keep this peculiar consequence in mind, for it
turns up more than once in the subseqnent history of positivism.
Hume's conclusions turned ont to be glaringly incompatible
with his intentions. This philosopher had set out to eliminate
the "false bricks" in the edifice of knowledge, that is, to keep
only snch components as can present a valid experimental pedi-
gree. Closer examination, however, showed him that no hnman
knowledge has or can have snch a pedigree, apart from in-
dividBal observations, which are cognitively and scientifically
sterile in the sense that no further inferences can be drawn from
them. Intended to provide science with nnshakable fonndations,
Hume's analysis deprived it of any possible foundation. Having
scoured the body of knowledge of metaphysical impurities,
Hume was in the end left empty-handed. His quest for an abso-
lutely reliable knowledge in the end disclosed the chimerical
nature of his nndertaking.
Hnme's failure, however, cannot be regarded as the total
defeat of positivism; rather, it enables ns to discern, in Hnme's
own thinking, a strand that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously,
from the very metaphysical doctrines he was battling-a battle
he was most anxious to bring to a victorious conclusion-namely,
the seventeenth-century metaphysical systems. The originators
of these systems maintained that they had contrived methods
thanks to which we can learn something more about the world
than its visible qualities and recurrent patterns of events; that it is
possible to know the ground of what is, not merely what is in
fact to he observed; to know what the world mnst necessarily
be, not merely what it is. Hnme opposed these simplifications,
but he did so in the hope that he would at last be able to show
what is really compelling and necessary in our cognition. As it
POSITIVISlvl DO\N TO DAVID HUME 41
turned out, however, there is no such thing. The destruction of
knowledge to which Hume's doctrine was led by its own
premises is thus accounted for by his striving to endow "true"
knowJedO"e with the very character the seventeenth-century
"
metaphysicians had claimed for it, namely, an absolutely com-
pelling character. He implicitly accepted the criterion of knowl-
edge applied by the traditional originators of systems, but he
applied it to his own doctrine and to science as a whole in order
to show that it cannot be applied anywhere at all. In the last
analysis, his was an absolutist point of view: he demanded of
science that it provide unshakable certainty, beyond all pOSSIble
criticism, and this was to demand of it ideals it could never
realize.
Positivism inherited from Hume the question he could not
elude and regarded as fundamental: Is there anything absolutely
certain in our knowledge, and if so what? None of the later
positivists followed Hnme in his rejection of the legitimacy of
indnction, but all of them had to cope in one way or another
with the question of its legitimacy. Since logical analysis as
well as the development of science itself had made clea.r that no
knowledge of the world can lay claim to absolute vabdity, the
further questiou arose: Can knowledge acquired by, or with the
help of, experieuce (an experience that cannot be by
anything else, and that, though not absolutely cerram, deserves
consideration for other than purely pragmatic reasons )-per-
haps also any scientific or commonly recognized trUth-can such
knowledge be accounted for solely by practical, rather than
cognitive reasons? In other words: What is indnctively
knowledge? Is it a socially conditioned reBex merely, which bIds
us accept a certain state of affairs as permanently present
to accept it is biologically more advantageous than to reject It?
Or is it a valid method for establishing certain truths abont the
world, truths relative in the sense that they are subject to
revision, but not in the sense that something true at one time
could be false at another time? How we answer this question is
crucial for all our convictions concerning the meaning of science
and philosophy, for all our statements about reality. Accordiug
to the first iuterpretation, there is no such thing as "knowledge"
in the current sense of the term: what we know is merely the
articulation of collectively conditioned reflexes, and it makes no
more sense to inquire into their "truth" in the traditional sense of
the term than into the "truth" of the behavior of a rat that,
trained by repeated experiences, secretes digestive juices on
perceiving one light signal, adrenalin on perceiving another. In
this case, knowledge is not, strictly speaking, a description of
the world, but a certain mode of human behavior which makes
use of accumulated experiences. This is the pragmatic inter-
pretation of knowledge. The second interpretation-the one in
which we assnme that knowledge has not only a pragmatic but
also a cognitive meaning, that it entitles ns to think something
about the world, to believe that it is rather one thing than
another-this interpretation is confronted with the task of sup-
plying ns with a valid foundation for all methods of getting
information that go beyond the collecting of individual facts.
Then we mnst show what, exactly, is the basis for assuming
that methods exist, thanks to which not only can we ascertain
the admissibility of any piece of information, but also are en-
titled to suppose it actually tells us something about reality-
independently of how this reality is interpreted philosophically.
Positivism as such never felt constrained to accept the first
interpretation, which has the merit of simplicity and readily
permits the legitimizing of anything on the ground of its use-
fulness, even the metaphysical doctrines that positivist criticism
has always been concerned to refute. Although the pragmatic
interpretation has been advanced hy certain positivists in a much
more explicit version than Burne's, it is not shared by all of
them. As for the other interpretation, it has to face the question
raised long ago by the Greek skeptics, which is always turning
up again in new versions: Can induction be validated without
referring to induction? In other words, is there a way to prove
43
that human knowledge has cognitive value without falling into a
vicious circle of argument?
In raising this question we are obviously going beyond an
account of Burne's philosophy, but we must do so if we are to
gain a clear understanding of his revolutionary role in the history
of cnlture, especially in reference to science's continuing effort
to acbieve self-knowledge. Burne carried empiricism into its
radical latter-day phase, making use of criteria elaborated by
anti-empirical systems, and in this way he brought about the
self-destruction of the empirical doctrine. Bis philosophy cer-
tainly helongs to tbe culture of the Eulightenment, but it reflects
the impotence, so to speak, of the Enlightenment, its helplessness
in the face of the questions it raised-a kind of helplessness al-
ways to be discerned in any period by those who come after it,
but which yet always turns out to have heen formulated by
someone in the period itself.
Burne's philosophy contributed something else, which we
have not yet mentioned, to the positivist style of thiuking. That
is, there is a direct tie-iu between his philosophical doctrine and
his political opinions. Burne was convinced that political free-
dom provides the most important criterion for distiuguishing
between good and bad methods of government, and tbat free-
dom is prerequisite to development of the arts and sciences. At
least as Bnme saw it, his political opinions derived from his
iuvestigations into knowledge.
It must be added, however, that the extremer consequences of
his philosophy, those that strike us today as reflecting hopeless-
ness or despair, did uot at all have that character in his own
eyes. Nothing could be more false than to picture Burne as the
sort of man or thinker who holds his head in pain, racked at
the purely destrnctive character of his own discoveries. Burne
was relentlessly consistent in his pursuit of the ultimate roots of
knowledge: he sought the truth at any price. At the same time,
however, he was anything but a fanatic, anything but insensitive
to the claims of ordinary life. Bis outstanding characteristic was
44
moderation; far from imposing his convictions in any overhear-
ing manner, he resorted (though reluctantly) to compromise on
several occasions, rather than be involved in violent controversy,
for he valued a "middle-ground" position in social life and per-
sonal conduct. Altbough theoretically couvinced of the fragility
of human knowledge, even of its bnilt-in incapacity for living
np to the expectations of scientists, he did not infer from these
convictions that scientific research is pointless and shonld be
given up as a waste of time. On the contrary, there was nothing
he valued more. He hated every kind of fanaticism, quarrels
over religion, disputes over metaphysics. We who sense great
drama in his vision are very different from Hume; he was not
in the least aware of it.
In this respect Hume's positivism represents one version or
variant expression of tendencies common to all the thinkers of
the Enlightenment. D'Alembert, whose name is frequently men-
tioned as a precursor of latter-day positivism, was far less radical
than Hume in his epistemological criticism, tempering its pos-
sible extremes with common sense or with principles that in his
day passed for those of common sense. He never doubted the
existence of physical bodies and was in sympathy with the aims
of "natural religion," which makes no choice among the various
denominations but rather bids us confine ourselves to a few basic
truths concerning the existence of God and the soul. He was
convinced that the increase of knowledge has more than a
purely pragmatic significance, that it leads to real insight into
ever more numerous and increasingly better organized properties
of the world. Yet at the Same time, his fundamental ideas and
initial intentions are similar to Hume's. Any knowledge worthy
of attention derives from sense impressions, and the mathemati-
cal sciences serve to order the material impressions supply, with
the aid of a system of symbols, and in this way progress is
assured toward the ultimate goal of the unity of the sciences.
"What are the majority of those axioms geometry is so proud
of," he asked, "if not the expression of the same simple idea
with the aid of two simple signs or words? Does a man who
says that two and two make four possess more information than
a man who says two and two is twO and two?" Science orders
elementary facts, and the fewer ordering principles it employs
the better. His ideal is a situation in which it would be possIble
to reduce all knowledge to a single principle explaining-or,
rather, ordering-everything. "To a man capable of encompass-
inn- the universe from one point of view, it would become, if we
bIn
may say 501 a single hOlnogeneous fact, one great. trut 1. .
Thus the Enlightenment had a positivism all ItS own, Just as
the age of the great historiosophical systems in the first. half of
the next century waS to have, in the work of Comte, ItS own
form of positivism adapted to its own interests and
The positivism of the Enlightenment was an attem?t to
mankind in its natural, this-worldly, physical and socIal environ-
ment, an attempt to minimize differences among men by a sensa-
tionalist theory of knowledge (every human being come: into
the world a tabula rasa, "blank slate"), an attempt to project a
life in time freed of chimerical "wrestling with God," designed
to improve the concrete conditions of human existence through
co-operation, to speed up the accumulation of knowledge, to do
away with prejudice and barren speculation. It sought to replace
the despair created by human pretensions to knowledge
with rational investigation of the cognitive POSslhllmes,. based ?11
empiricist premises; to replace metaphysical With
systematic study of concrete human needs and the ,:ondmons
their collective satisfaction; instead of hammenng 1OtO people s
heads obscurantist dogmas by terror and violence, it sought to
discover educational methods that would appeal to the individ-
ual's self-interest and at the same time teach him the value of
sympathy, mutual understanding, and collaboration. Within this
intellectual climate, the positivist theory of knowledge turns out
to have been a radically destructive tool that, with the help of a
few simple rules, sought to drive out of human history all that
hinders agreement among men, slows the advancement of
science, makes it harder to teach people to work together,
upholds tyrannical government whether secular or ecclesiastical,
hinders the circulation whether of ideas or commodities.
Needless to say, this vision of the world was not uniformly
optimistic. At least some outstanding thinkers of the age were
aware that conflicts and difficulties would arise if serious at-
tempts were made to carry out such optimistic projects in the
real world. We shall not, however, go into these matters here,
inasmuch as we have assumed, somewhat arbitrarily but indis-
pensably, that it is possible to expound the main stages of
positivist thought without writing (as no doubt one should) a
general history of philosophy. It will he enough to note here that
Hume clearly enunciated the basic principles of positivism; that
they were one factor in the Enlightenment's struggle against
superstition, metaphysics, inequality, and despotism; that the in-
antinomy in Hume's theory of knowledge came to light
In his own works, and that as a result the next generation of
was confronted with unresolved problems. The ques-
tlOn whether a knowledge, at once ahsolutely reliable and yet
not devoid of content, not reduced to sterility by being confined
to individual facts, was possible-this question turned out to be
a concentrated expression of everything the theory of knowl-
edge is concerned with. Hume has the lasting merit of having
formulated this question clearly and fully.
CHAPTER THREE
Auguste C07nte:
Positivism in the Romantic Age
I. The qua1'Tel over Corme. It must be noted that the term
"positivism" is most naturally associated with the name of this
philosopher, although his doctrine contains a particularly large
number of elements looked upon as alien to currently accepted
positivist preoccupations and even incompatible with them.
Hence all the discussion over whether and to what extent it may
be legitimate to call Comte a positivist, although he himself not
only so called himself but actually originated the term. Here,
however, we have to distinguish between his life and his thought.
Some of Comte's earliest disciples held the view that his thought
can be divided into two distinct stages, the first of which is the
source of positivism proper, whereas the second is at least a
partial negation of the first and should be regarded as an un-
fortunate aherration, ascribable to the fact that the great philos-
opher was afflicted by a recurrence of his mental illness toward
the end of his life. This picture of the situation has been altered,
however, by twentieth-century historians. Unlike earlier stu-
dents, they find that the so-called second phase of his thought,
in which he elaborated his "religion of humanity," is a natural
development from the earlier, its crowning achievement rather
than any sort of falling off. Thus, depending on the particular
sense they give to the term "positivism," some conclude that
Comte never was a positivist-since the utopian vistas of rus
later works are in a way prefigured in the earlier ones-while
others decide to adapt the meaning of the term to Comte's
case, seeing no reason why the philosopher should he denied the
name he created and applied to himself.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that his philosophy is a vast
historiosophic synthesis of a sort most latter-day positivists ap-
proach gingerly, if at alL Though it lends itself to succinct pres-
entation (Comte himself exercised extraordinary consistency,
and his disciples were prompt to draw up shorter versions), it is
still not free from certain ambiguities, especially when treated
in the context of a history of positivism. These will be men-
tioned a little later.
2. Biography. Auguste Comte was born in Montpellier on
January 18, '798, the son of a civil servant. At an unusually
early age, while still a schoolboy, he displayed brilliant mathe-
matical gifts. By the time he was sixteen, he was teaching mathe-
matics to boys of his own age. He was admitted to the Ecole
Poly technique in Paris, but expelled with a group of other stu-
dents for having greeted Napoleon's return too enthusiastically in
the period of the Hundred Days. Later, he began medical studies
at l\1ontpellier, but after some time returned to Paris, earning his
living as a translator, and pursuing various studies on his own.
In 18 I 7 he met Henri de Saint-Simon, who had been reflecting
for many years on the lamentable state of post-revolutionary
France and on how society could be radically improved. The
result of these reflections was a project for the fundamental
reconstruction of society along socialist lines as Saint-Simon
understood them, with particular emphasis upon making full use
of human productive energies. His project was to create a
planned economy free of political and social anarchy and eco-
nomic crisis, and thereby free of war and poverty. Won over by
the sixty-year-old Saint-Simon's schemes for refomI, the young
Comte joined forces with him, served as his secretary, and acted
as co-editor of his publishing enterprise. Their assocation lasted
for several years, but eventually differences of opinion led to a
complete break between the two. Harsh references to Comte in
writings by the Saint-Simonians are evidence of this break.
AUGUSTE COMTE 49
The rest of Comtc's life was devoted to developing his doc-
trine and making it better known. He lived from hand to
mouth and for a time supported himself meagerly by tutoring.
In 1826 he launched a course of lectures intended to acquaint
the public, particularly men of science, with the principles of
what he called "the positive philosophy." Soon, however, a se-
vere mental derangement forced him to stop. Tbe lectures were
resumed in 1829 after he recovered. In 18)0 the first volume of
his Course in Positive Philosophy appeared. The sixth and last
was published twelve years later. But neither the lectures (Comte
also gave public lectures on astrouomy for many years) nor the
books brought in any money. He gave private lessons in mathe-
matics, then was appointed examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique;
his attempts to obtain a permanent academic post were unsnc-
cessfuJ. For some time he received funds from England, which
John Stuart Mill collected for him, but to the end of his days
he was tormented by money worries. His marriage in 182 S was
unsuccessful and ended in separation. In 1845 he met Clotilde
de Vaux, and although their friendship was short-lived (she
died about a year later), this remarkable woman greatly in-
fluenced his later works. His worship of her is reflected in his
views on the important part women and "universal affection"
were assigned in the "positive society" of the future.
Comte pnblished many more books: Elementary Treatise on
Analytic Geometry (1843), Philosophical Treatise on Popular
Astronomy (,844), Discourse on the Positive Spirit (1844), The
Positive Polity (185'-1854), Positive Catechism (1854), Subjec-
tive Synthesis or Universal System of Ideas Concerning the
Normal State of Humanity (1856). These and his published
lectures never secured him any social position, but won him a
growing circle of disciples, the most prominent of whom was
Emile Littn" a zealous popularizer of Comte's views. Toward
the close of the 1840S a Positivist Society was founded, and
from then on Comte's doctrine began to gain adherents. In ac-
cord with Comte's own plan, the society became more and more
50
a kind of secular religion with its own ritual; something of it
survives to this day in France, although it has preserved greatest
vitality in Brazil. Comte spent the greater part of his life in Paris,
and died there on September 5, 1857. He was cantankerous,
stubborn, and hard to get on with, like so many people who are
unshakab!y convinced they have a mission radically to improve
the world.
3. Ideas of social reform. Comte's whole doctrine, including
the theory of knowledge, becomes intelligible only when grasped
as a grandiose project for nniversal reform encompassing not
only the sciences but all spheres of life. Reflection on the France
of his day led him to the conviction that the organization of
society needed overhauling from top to bottom, and that one
prerequisite was reform of the sciences and of understanding
generally. Reform of the sciences, he believed, would make it
possible to create an as yet non-existent science of society, with-
out which social life could not be reconstructed on rational
foundations. Uniform organization of the totality of human
knowledge was indispensable to pave the way for a full-fledged
science to be known as "sociology," which alone would make
possible the projected transformations of collective life.
Comte's plans for social reform are linked with a bisto-
riosophic schema whose leading idea he took over from the Saint-
Simonians. This schema (like that of Joseph de Maistre's philos-
ophy, which has other featnres as well in common with the
utopians) divides human history into alternating epochs, some
"organic," some "crhical." The organic epochs are those in
which societies are bent on preserving the inherited order, when
social differentiations are regarded as a natural division of neces-
sary social functions. In such epochs society is treated as a
supra-individual entity with a value of its own superior to that
of individuals. In the critical epocbs, bent above all on destroying
the existing order, society on the contrary sees itself as merely
the sum total of separate individuals; as such it is devoid of
indepeudent existence and its values do not differ from those
AUGUSTE COMTE 51
associated with individuals taken separately. The alternation of
organic and critical ages in history is not, however, merely a
succession of swings of the pendulum, but has a directional
character and results in progress. The re-emergence of an or-
ganic epoch after a critical one is uot just a return to the old
order, but a restoration of the collectivity's orgauic nature in
keeping with higher principles of social life. Pivotal to this
progress is the transformation of modes of thinking, intellectual
development as such. In the next organic phase toward which
present-day humanity is moving-in the "positive society" of
the fntnre-basic structural features of feudal society will have
to be restored, among others a division between spiritnal and
secular authority. However, the uew spiritual organization will
no longer be based on theological dogmas and Christian beliefs,
but on science. The only possible way to overcome the anarchy
and disorder the Freuch Revolution ushered in is to create a
single authority, but this is not Cat least to begin with) to be
tied up with any single doctrine. In this connection Comte
praised the Convention aud criticized those who idealized the
British parliamentary system and wanted to transplant it to
French soil. He also expressed approval of Louis Napoleon's coup
d'etat, believing that a dictatorship without a doctrine may
eventnally, once complemented with a suitable social ideology,
restore the orgauic unity of society, political life, and religion.
Comte thought that his own discoveries, leading to the creation
of a true science of society, could restore the lapsed uuity. Once
scientific principles have been universally recognized by man-
kind, the revolutionary metaphysics will be supplanted by a trne
social physics. It is of the utmost importance that what is
constant in the conditions of human life should he properly un-
derstood; utopian thinkers, who suppose that the underlyiug con-
ditions of life can be transformed at will, do not encourage prog-
fess but delay it. Before projecting anything, we must carefully
study the natural resistance of things-this is as important where
transforming society is concerned as where the industrial proc-
essing of raw materials is concerned. Comte was firmly con-
vinced that he had succe&sfully resisted the temptation the
utopians had not resisted, to envisage a perfect society incapable
of practical realization. His own projects were adapted, he
believed, to the natural and necessary characteristics of social
life. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment assumed that
human solidarity and co-operation existed only because they were
usenl to individnals, Comte asserted the existence of a social
instinct at least as strong as selfish aspirations and entirely in-
dependent of them. The harmonious co-existence of human be-
. ings is possible only thanks to this instinct, not to any alleged
reconciling of private interests via a "social contract." Contrary
to individualistic doctrines, society is not just an instrument for
regulating conflicts between individuals, but an organic whole
in its own right, and we are part of it because we have an
innate tendency to live together, which is independent of in-
dividual interest. This tendency is permanent and therefore must
be taken into account in all plans for social reform.
More generally, no social development can be called progress
if it violates the permanent structural features of collective life
as such. Private property, for instance, is one of the permanent
features, and hence the utopian followers of Baheuf do not con-
tribute to progress. The organic and rational society of the
furore must be based on science: the principles of its organiza-
tion will be scientifically elaborated, and all its members must
adopt scientific modes of thinking.
What this scientific mode of thinking should be can be deter-
mined only by studying the history of science. The point is
of crucial importance in Comte's thinking. He makes no attempt
to decide arbitrarily what is or what is not science, but founds
his nOlms on the basis of historical inquiry into how human
knowledge has evolved. In other words, the laws of the develop-
ment of human knowledge are historical par excellence. From
study of these laws sociologists and historians can demonstrate
that earlier, already transcended phases of human evolntion were
AUGUSTE COMTE
53
not mere ('errors)" but had, so to speak, their own rationale; they
were inevitable stages of intellectual development, and the ideas
produced in them were true-that is, were adetluate to the total-
ity of needs felt in eacb successive epoch. Comte's famons Law
of the Three States cannot be grasped unless we keep clearly in
mind that it describes sociological realities, treats the content of
human knowledge as a component of social life. It is no mere
enumeration of the good, bad, and indifferent possibilities of hu-
man thought, abstractly conceived.
4- Reform of the sciences. The Law of the Three States .
Science, then, is a sociological fact, and it is from this point
of view that its past stages must be described, and its future
possibilities assessed. Science is an instrmnent serving to increase
man's control over the conditions of his natural and social life.
This does not, of course, mean that our practjcal abilities cor-
respond exactly to the state of our knowledge, for occasionally
we are able to achieve results without prior preparation in the
relevant field of science. However, the main touchstone of effec-
tive knowledge is practical applicability. In his reflections on the
utility of the sciences Comte often lapses into an astonishingly
narrow dogmatism which leads him to dismiss extensive domains
of already existing or emerging knowledge as fundamentally nse-
less or "metaphysical." In this spirit he disposed of the theory
of probability, asu'ophysics, cosmogonies extending farther than
the solar system, investigations into the structure of matter, the
theory of evolution, and even study of the origin of societies.
In his opinion, discoveries in these fieJds can never be practically
exploited, and hence represent a waste of scientists' time and
energy. Such apodictic pronouncements, which, fortunately,
failed to arrest research in the disciplines involved, are some-
times excnsed by Comte's defenders on the grounds that they
implied no absolute prohibition but merely a demand that in-
vestigations that afford no immediate practical advantage be
stopped for the time being. Comte was not laying down the
law once and for all, they say; yet even if their apology were
54
well founded, we have to notice today how extraordinarily
limited was Comte's conception of the ntilitarian tasks of knowl-
edge.
The Law of the Three States is often presented as the "key"
to Comte's doctrine. According to it, the history of the human
mind can be divided into three successive "states" (or stages).
These can be traced through every branch of knowledge. The
first, or theological stage, COVers mankind's progress from fe-
tishism to polytheism and on to monotheism; it corresponds to
the most primitive stage of social life-theocracy. Every science
inevitably passes through this stage of development, which is not
to be thought of as merely a collection of sllperstitions, bnt as
an embryonic form of knowledge, which anticipates futnre
achievements in its rudimentary endeavors of observation and
reflection. At this level, the human mind is searching for the
hidden natnre of things, trying to find out "why" things happen
as they do, and it answers these questions by constructing a
divinity in man's own image. The course of natnre appears as a
series of miracles deliberately performed by higher powers gov-
erning the visible world. Modern astronomy, for instance, would
never have been born had not practical concerns stimulated
early astrologers to develop an art of observing the movements
of the heavenly bodies and, eventnally, a method of computing
aud predicting their movements. Love of trnth for its own sake
could not as yet provide a sufficiently strong motive; the earliest
astronomical observation owes its existence to belief in hidden
connections between the motions of the stars and the fate of
individual humau beings, and to the possibilit"'f of predicting
future events on the basis of astronomical computations. Simi-
larly,. fetishistic b e l i e ~ s , totemic religions, and fortnne-telling
pracnces called attennon to various peculiarities of the animal
world, which otherwise might have gone unnoticed; in this field
too, primitive superstition made possible the accumulation of a
basic store of scientificaIly important data: the domestication of
animals derives from this source. Relics of its theological begin-
AUGUSTE COMTE
55
mngs are still to be discerned in mathematics, the science first
to emancipate itself, especially in the mystical Pythagorean ap-
proach to numbers, which incontestably contributed to the in-
crease of real kuowledge. In short, the superstition that invari-
ably characterizes the early stages of knowledge is not to be
simply deplored as anti-knowledge, but recoguized as a natural
stage in intellectual development, the earliest form in which
mankind's store of observatious and data gets organized.
Each intellectual state is correlated by Comte with a specific
system of social organization. The transition to monotheism, the
highest achievement of the theological state, was bound up with
the development of a defensive military system intended to en-
compass the entire Western world. The Middle Ages, intellectu-
ally dominated by monotheism, is not to he looked upon merely
as an epoch of darkness and decline, according to Comte. On
this score he displayed a strong seuse of historical relativism in
pointed antagonism to the eighteenth century's cliches. His re-
habilitation of the Middle Ages stemmed from a conviction that
the culture of this epoch, too, marked a necessary stage in the
intellectual development of mankind. Thanks to the democratic
principles that governed ecclesiastical life, the Middle Ages
abolished or undermined the rigid caste system inherited from
the past and provided a new intellectual framework for the
further progress of knowledge.
A new stage of development is ushered in with the second,
or metaphy sical state. Now the human mind has become mature
enough not to look for supernatural causes of events. It still in-
quires into the "nature" of things, still wants to know the "why"
of phenomena, but it accounts for what happens differently, by
creating secular or natural divinides, as it were, which man
now holds responsible for the observed facts: "forces," "quali-
ties/' "powers," "properties,n and other such constructs char-
acteristic of the metaphysically oriented stage of science. Bodies
form compounds by virtue of sympathy, plants grow thanks to
their vegetative soul, animals are seutient thanks to their animal
soul. As Moliere put it, opium purs one to sleep because of its
"dormitive virtue." The metaphysical state undergoes a develop-
ment similar to that of the preceding state, culminating in a kind
of secular monotheism, which compresses the multiplicity of
occult powers into the single over-all concept of "nature," re-
garded as capable of accounting for all the facts. The metaphysi-
cal conception of the world contributed to the advance of knowl-
edge tremendonsly in several fields, and in its terminal phase
paved the way for the turning point in hnman history-the open-
ing of a third state, the "positive era."
The positive stage of intellectual development is distingnished
from the metaphysical, among other ways, in that it does not
try to answer the guestions of earlier epochs in a different way,
hut rules out the guestions themselves hy unmasking their fruit-
less, purely verbal character. The positive mind no longer asks
why, ceases to speculate on the hidden nature of things. It asks
how phenomena arise and what course thev take it collects , ,
facts and is ready to submit to facts; it does not permit deductive
thinking to be carried too far and subjects it to the continuons
control of "objective" facts. It does not employ terms that have
no counterpart in reality. Its sale aim is to discover invariable
universal laws governing phenomena in time, and for this pur-
pose it makes use of observation, experiment, and calcnlation;
The positive spirit leads not only to certainty, insofar as certainty
is accessible to man, but also to the abolition of the illusory cer-
tainty and satisfaction that nse of empirically uncontrolled terms
designating metaphysical "divinities" gave rise to. As alchemy
was supplanted in the metaphysical era by the positive science
of chemistry, astrology and worship of the stars by positive
astronomy, so vitalist speculations are being supplanted by posi-
tive biology. Fourier formulated the guantitative regularities of
thermal phenomena without bothering about the "nature" of heat.
Cuvier discovered the laws governing the structure of organisms
without advancing a single hypothesis concerning the "natnre"
of life. Newton described the phenomena of motion and attrac-
AUGUSTE COMTE
57
tion without engaging in metaphysical speculation concerning the
"essence" of matter or movement.
The positive mind presupposes a deterministic interpretation
of phenomena-not in the sense that it believes in the existence
of metaphysical "causes," but in the sense that it seeks to deter-
mine the universal laws governing every observed phenomenon.
It is convinced that these laws, or rather regnlarities in ob-
served phenomena, encompass the totality of the world. Comte's
conception of science is purely phenomenalist, though by no
means suhjectivist. According to him, the human brain should
be a faithful mirror of the objective order, and knowledge of this
order serves as the mind's own ordering principle. Mere in-
trospection cannot lead to cognition of the principles according
to which the human mind operates; it discovers the principles
of its own operation by observing things and discovering the
laws that govern them. Intelligence by itself is both impotent
and dangerous: impotent, becanse it lacks sufficient incentive in
itself-only affective impulses and practical needs set it to work;
dangerous, because unless it is subordinated to fact it tends to
create speculative metaphysical systems. Humility in the face of
compelling facts and practical inspiration-such are the distinc-
tive features of the positive intellect. No wonder, then, that the
positive stage was attained first in those domains of knowledge
where the human mind could most readily grasp that things
do not submit to the whims of the hnman imagination, where
the mind itself must bow to the demands of reality if it is to
avoid costly errors. Such a domain is that of the mathematical
sciences-the first to enter npon the positive stage of develop-
ment, at a time when tbe others were still in their infancy.
According to Comte, although all the sciences pass through
similar stages of development, they do uot all do so at the same
rate of speed. We also note that the transition of anyone science
to a higher stage is not accidental, but determined by the na-
ture of its investigations as well as by its connections with par-
ticular social needs.
Consequently, the sciences form a certain natural order.
This is not the result of arbitrary systematization, but clearly
disclosed in the light of historical analysis. The sciences are
classified according to two interconnected principles, which lead
to identical results: decreasing generality and increasing com-
plexity. The rank order that results is as follows: the least com-
plex in subject matter and the most general in their range of
validity are the mathematical sciences, which deal with every
sort of measurable relation between phenomena in terms of
quantity-quantity beiug the most universal, simplest property
of things. Astronomy comes next. Its range is more limited than
that of mathematics, but it is richer for bringing within the
range of science a further feature: force. P hy sics introduces
further qualitative distinctions, such as heat and light. After
physics comes chemistry, which deals with qualitatively dif-
ferentiated substances. An even greater number of qualities,
though a narrower range of matter for investigation, character-
izes the biological sciences, which investigate organic structures.
Last among the sciences comes sociology, the place of which will
have to be discussed separately: its object, obviously, is the most
complex and the least universal of all the matters for study.
Neither metaphysics nor psychology figures in this list. Comte
subsequently added the science of morals as a separate disci-
pline.
The above order is at once logical, historical, and pedagogical.
That it is logical is apparent from the fact that it is based on
mutually consistent principles. We realize it is historical when we
observe that each science reached the positive stage at a different
point in time. Mathematics liberated itself before any other
science, having already reached the positive stage in ancient
Greece. Astronomy emerged from the metaphysical mists only
thanks to the discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo.
Physics attained its positive maturity at the end of the seven-
teenth century thanks to the work of Huyghens, Pascal, Papin,
and Newton. The next century saw chemistry achieve the status
AUGUSTE COMTE
59
of a positive science thanks to Lavoisier, and biology was not
born nntil the nineteenth centnry when, turning its back on
teleologically oriented speculation about entelechies and vital
forces, it began to concentrate on positive investigation into the
laws governing relations between organisms and their environ-
ments on the one hand, and how the structural features in living
beings endure on the other. There remains sociology which, as
a positive science, is still at the programmatic stage. Comte set
out to realize its program himself.
The above arrangement, we observed, is also pedagogical.
This means that the sciences should be taught in the order of
their development, so that they may form a coherent system in
the student's mind. Comte projected an ideal of knowledge at
once encyclopedic and Cartesian, in which the sciences are so
closely interdependent in both their logical coherence and their
practical applications that it is impossible to practice anyone
of them without heing acqnainted with the others. Each more
complex, Jess general science presnpposes those preceding it in
the rank order, and conversely, since the sciences are practiced
for the purpose of prediction and social application, a positive
knowledge of social phenomena is indispensable to the orienta-
tion of knowledge as a whole. More than that, science itself is a
social phenomenon, and its content depends on the historical
conditions under which it was formulated. The latter observa-
tion must be treated with caution, lest we fan into the extreme
relativism that neglects the value of scientific achievement in
other epochs and so fail to appreciate that intellectual autonomy
is indispensable to the advance of knowledge. With this reserva-
tion, the statement is basically true.
This ordering of the sciences achieves a twofold purpose. It
rejects the doctrine that would reduce all disciplines to "lower"
ones. This doctrine-which Comte, more or less in keeping with
the philosophical climate of his day, called "materialism"-fails
to take into account the qualitative differences between the
sciences and labors under all illusion, either that the laws gov-
60
erning the mare complex domains of reality can be deduced
from those governing the less complex ones, or that the ones'
are simply to be identified with the others (the purely physical
interpretation of life, the biological interpretation of society,
. etc.). Actually, according to Comte, the more complex sciences
presuppose the less complex ones, and the more complex phe-
nomena are ohviously dependent on simpler ones (the biological
conditions of social life such as food, sexuality, etc.), but this
does not imply that the complex phenomena are not subject to
irreducible laws of their own. Thus, the principle of scientific
autonomy rnles out any "social physics" in the eighteenth-cen-
tnry sense, also any reduction of organic life to mechanical mo-
tions in space. The nnity of the sciences is not assured by any
process, but by recognizing their interdependence, by
vIewmg them as parts of one and the same human activity, as
differentiated elements of one and the same social reality. Comte
:,omes closer to the historical relativism that interprets
sClentIfic facts as social facts and makes sociology the universal
SCIence, than to the mechanistic theories that seek to describe
the world in its total diversity in terms of the movements of
non-qualitative bodies in space.
Although the autonomy of the intellectnal processes that
science must be recognized, it cannot be permitted to
mvahdate the fundamental criterion of the value of knowledge-
usefulness. If it is not to bog down in fruitless speculation and
was;e man's .intellectual energies, science must continually be
of m social tasks, which in the last analysis determine
ItS TIllS practical control of knowledge has a historical
and SOCIal character; it is not effected in the minds of individual
scientists, but is effected continuously by the human species as a
whole. In the last analysis, then, what science needs is what
society needs, namely, the ability to predict eVents and to in-
them practically. In this respect, the sciences differ. Our
ablhty to predict events is in inverse ratio to our ability to in-
flnence them. We can predict a great deal in the field of as-
AUGUSTE COMTE 61
tronomy, but we cannot influence the worlds under observa-
tion in any way whatever. The opposite is true in the domain
of social behavior: here our actions can have cousiderable 111-
fluence, bur our prophecies, at least down to the present, are
highly problematical.
Just which scientific knowledge is worth pnrsuing is suggested
by the foregoing. The laws scientists discover are relative in
the sense that they are approximate. We may regard them merely
us hypotheses sufficiently confirmed by observation, but this
does not make them uncertain or useless. ';Y e may not, in
ascertaining laws, go beyond the actual limits of observation;
more generally, there is no reason to make them more exact
than considerations of practical utility demand. If a given law
enables us to predict and influence the phenomena it refers to,
efforts to formulate it more precisely serve only to satisfy
curiosity. For instance, Comte thought that it was superfluous to
have made corrections in Boyle-Mariotte's law, because he did
not expect them to give rise to any practical benefit. Nor, in
his opinion, do we need quantitative reseaTch in the biological
sciences: the phenomena of life are too complex to be measur-
able; we should expect practical results, rather, from comparative
study of different organic structures. Nor does the theory of
evolution inspire confidence, for it rules out permanent classifi-
cation-and the permanence of the species seems to be a condi-
tion for the very existence of biological science. What Comte
wanted, above all, was orderly, lasting classifications; he favored
Cuvier, whose method, in his view, could ascertain the exact,
unchanging structural laws governing organisms. He supported
Gall because he thong'ht that phrenology would do away with
the old psychology and its absurd speculations on psychic func-
tions without regard for their organic localization; rather, we
should assume that psychic functions are closely correlated with
the structure of the brain, and that each function has its own
organ. As for the enigmatic "core" of psychic life, the initial
monad or "I" conscious of itself, it is nothing but a survival of
theological ideas ahout the soul. The latter must he eliminated
from positive knowledge, for it refers to no scientifically useful
reality.
This style of thinking dominates throughout Comte's philos-
ophy. His ideal is finn and uncompromising: perfect classifica-'
tions, with organ and function permanently correlated in a one-
to-one correspondence. Those areas of the world that disclose
fluid classifications, continuous qualitative transitions, or any
enigmatic features whatever, annoy and irritate him. His sure
sense of the historicity of knowledge is combined with a pecnliar
aversion to genetic research, which, in his opinion, is of no help
in nnderstanding the phenomena studied. Comte is a fanatic on
the score of searching for a definitive, "once and for all" order.
5. Sociological program. Comte coined the linguistic hybrid,
"sociology." This is no doubt why some textbooks refer to him
as the founder of this science. So far as that goes, Comte himself
claimed to be its Galileo. In the bistory of Reason's progressive
emancipation, the extraordinary complexity of social facts in-
evitably required that tbe science dealing witb tbem should Come
last. Moreover, sociology is logically dependent upon the other
disciplines because social facts occur in a biologically deter-
mined reality; it is small wonder, then, tbat the eighteenth cen-
tnry's rudimentary attempts at a scientific interpretation of so-
ciety relied on biology and geography to account for buman
history. However, to constitute sociology a science is also to
make it independent of the otber sciences, in the sense that
this obliges us clearly to distinguish between areas of social life
determined by permanent conditions of organic life and those
governed by purely societal laws. Once the distinction bas
been drawn, it will become clear tbat all the sciences are social
facts, just like other social facts, and bence depend on sociology.
True knowledge is always at tbe service of buman needs. Tbus,
sociology alone gives meaning to the rest of human knowledge.
As science, sociology above all exposes as illusion those earlier
theories according to which all social structnres are attributed to
AUGUSTE COMTE
"original" compacts or contracts concluded in the spirit of self-
interest, in calculation of profit or Joss. Underlying all theories
of the social contract is a philosophy tbat ascribes reality to in-
dividuals only and regards tbe collectivity eitber as a mecha-
nism devised for convenience or as a theoretical abstraction.
Positive sociology will show, however, that tbe opposite is true:
it is the "individual" that is a mental construct, and society is the
primordial reality. Social life as such is as "natural" as the
functions of the human organism and regnires no fictitions con-
tract to account for it. Mankind lives in society hecause such
is the nature of the species, not because people expect that hy
living together they will enjoy advantages they would not enjoy
separately. Mankind, a real living being with its own continuity
and identity, thinks and creates, and in no purely metaphorical
sense. Mankind has its childhood, its yonth, and its maturity.
Like organisms, it has its own structure and structural properties,
whieh never change, and which historical progress never does
away with. The fnnctions indispensable to the life of society are
embodied in permanent organs. For example, social differentia-
tion in the form of castes or classes is merely an analogue to the
way tissues are differentiated in any living organism. Similarly, a
perfectly homogeneous society is just as inconceivable as the
disappearance of qualitative distinctions among the tissues of a
living body. Progress takes place within the particular organs,
bnt since they are permanent conditions of mankind's existence,
they are not subject to cbange: these organs inclnde the family,
private property, religion, language, secular authority, and spir-
itual authority. The structure of the social organism is just as
unchangeable as the solar system, the stars, and the biological
species. The three-stage evolution is confined to specific struc-
tural elements; moreover, changes invariably occur first of all
in modes of thinking, and thence spread, as it were, to the social
structure. Similarly, social revolutions do not affect tbe structure
of society, but only its form: tbey are not "critical" epochs in the
Saint-Simonians' sense. Revolutions merely introduce disorder, a
symptom of reorganization.
Nor is there any reason to suppose that society's fundamental
institutions will be abolished in the future. In particular, the
distinction between spiritual and secular authority is not a medie-
val invention, but an essential feature of all collective life. The
division of authority between Pope and Emperor is to be re-
placed with a division of power between scientists and industrial-
ists. The fact that society has yet to be rationally organized is
accounted for by the shortcomings of public instruction and
the lack of a scientific knowledge of society. But now (thanks to
Comte) the basic intellectual requirements have been met: we
need only popularize positive knowledge, and the history of
Reason's emancipation will be completed once and for all. Hu-
man history will have atrained its final form. True, sociology
does not just include "statics," that is, the science dealing
with the permanent structural features of society, but also "dy-
namics," that is, the science of progress. But once the positive
spirit has been victorious, progress will no longer face obstacles
created by prejudice, ignorance, and myth.
6. The religion of humanity. While the positive system abol-
ishes the old religions based on theological beliefs, it does not
abolish religion itself, for this is a permanent element in the
social structure, the indispensable bond that holds things to-
gether (according to Cicero, the very term religio denotes this
fnnction). This idea of a secular religion has been regarded by
some as implied in Comte's great synthesis, by others as merely
the wanderings of a sick mind. Today almost all students of
Comte discern elements of "the religion of humanity" in his
thinking from the very earliest writings.
In the positive religion, Humanity takes the place of the
mythological gods. Humanity transcends the individual: it is
composed of all living, dead, and yet nnborn individuals; within
it, individuals replace one another like cells in an organism,
without thereby affecting its independent existence. Individuals
AUGUSTE COMTE
are products of Humanity: their thoughts, feelings, beliefs,
talents, abilities-all are functions of the single great organism's
life. Humanity deserves tbe worship once given imaginary gods.
As it has always done, religion will unite human beings and
order their lives, 'will keep alive the consciousness of their ties
to the Higher Being, and teach people their duties (never rights).
In c0!1tradistinction to the old myths, the positive religion will
be able to bring about perfect harmony between mankind's
emorjonal and intellectual needs.
It is noteworthy to how great an extent Comte was fascinated
by the sway of Catholicism, its universalism, its ability to en-
compass all forms of human life. The religion of humamty WIll
meticulously imitate the system the Church created,. clean:lllg
it of superstitious theological beliefs bur preservlllg. Its umfy-
ing power. Rituals and sacraments, the calendar, a pnesthood to
teach the dogmas of the new faith, secular baptism, secular con-
firmation, and secular last rites-all this will be preserved. The
new dogmas are ready-they are the Comtean doctrine . and
the laws of science. In addition there will be a new and posJt1ve
conception of the goardian angel: this is the role a s s i g ~ e d
womanhood in the new faith. Nor did Comte neglect to glVe
new, positive names to the months and days of the week (each
month will be named after a saint of the positive religion, and
each day will be dedicated to one of the seven sciences: the
magical number seven was reached once positive morality waS
added to the original six sciences). Also, temples will be erected to
the positive religion which, being based on scientific principles,
will all be identical. The priesthood will be presided over by a
positive Pope, who will share power with the positive s:cular
authority. The latter's function will be primarily to further llldus-
trial development and to harness new intellectual conguests to
practical tasks. For we think in order to act more effectively: the
mind works to satisfy the body's needs.
However, man is not just a thinking being with physical needs,
he also has feelings. Altruistic feelings flourish in family life,
hence the family mnst be the cornerstone of the collective
edifice; consequently, the positive society asserts the rights of
parents over children and prohibits divorce. Woman is assigned a
particularly sublime function: she is to be the guardian and the
source of human affections, and it is she who will secure the
triumph of the positive spirit on earth. It is well known that
feelings hold sway over the mind-not in the sense that the
mind has no independent rnles of operation, but in the sense
that only feeling actually inclines it to act. In the perfect world
the worship of womanhood will be universal, aud there will even
be a Virgin Mother giving birth to children by means of artilical
insemination. Comte goes so far as to calculate the exact number
of families each national unit should contain in the future: he
favors small states, as being the easier to administrate efficiently.
At this point, we must make a brief digression. It may seem
incredible that a writer able to treat a nnmber of scientific
questions so meticulously, one endowed, moreover, with so keen
a sense of the historicity of human institutions, seriously
imagined that the structure and forms of the Catholic Church
could be taken over intact, all its beliefs rejected and replaced
with others-on the model of emptying a pail of sand and re-
filling it with water. But this seeming absurdity is actually a
logical consequence of his doctrine. Comte is faithful to as-
sumptions that are not his exclusive property but from which
he, unlike others, drew the ultimate consequences. Once you as-
sume that man is defined by a sum total of needs which remains
constant (withont, of course, neglecting emotional needs) so
that only the way in which they are satisfied changes with the
advance of knowledge; further, when you assume that intellec-
tual life and religious life have, strictly speaking, no separate
existence and do not express different needs but are merely func-
tions (or "fonns") of more primitive needs; and finally, when
you assume that man acts as he does (intellectual behavior in-
c1uded) under tbe influence of affective stimuli that are constant
and predictable so that rational social organization can encom-
AUGUSTE COMTE
pass them all-once all this is assumed, there is nothing astonish-
ing about the supposition that it should be possible to manipu-
late the inherited means of expression at will for the purpose
of organizing any and all social phenomena. Iu a general way
Comte was aware of the resistance of things and the non-
voluntary character of human reactions to the world, but he
nonetheless believed that his own theory of unchanging struc-
tures covered the totality of this resistance. He recognized the
historical necessity of the "lower" forms of intellectual life, but
not the indepeudent power of tradition. In other words, he en-
tertained the helief that the society of the future, once it had
adopted the positive way of thinking, would no longer be subject
to the weight of its own past, and that its necessities would then
take on a purely natural character, connected with biological
necessity to unchanging organs of social life. Tbus, at bottom,
he believed in the total obliteration of history in tbe future
order, in the possibility of completely rationalizing every sphere
of life. His aversion to "Utopian" thinking applied only to the
kinds he detected in other thinkers. His historicism was purely
retrospective, for it stopped at the positive stage. He believed in
the end of history.
7. The results of Comte's thought. The Saint-Simonians were
among Comte's earliest critics. They found his ideas concerning
progress weak and also criticized his "materialism": their own
goals included a return to true religion with a true god and
true priests. They opposed any program that would subordinate
artistic creatiou in the society of the future to tasks determined
by science-and Comte did believe that in the future industrial
needs will dictate to poets and artists what they are to do; their
fuuction will be that of stimulating people, by artistiC means, to
achieve the desired productive results. As it seemed to his critics,
this took all culmral initiative away from tbeartist. They also
criticized him for his opinion that scientific hypotheses are just
as verifiable as facts-according to them, this was the error that
led Comte to atheism, for he destroyed the very idea of faith
when he replaced it with a monopolistic rule of science over
the human mind.
These criticisms, however, made no great impression, nor did
they check the spread of Comte's ideas, save on the score of his
program for a positive religion: from the outset, the leading
popnlarizers of Comteanism, especially Littre, had quietly re-
moved this superstructure. Although a Comtean secular church
has survived down to this day, it has nowhere played a significant
part in intellectual life. Comte's doctrine has been influential, not
in its complete "universal" version, but only fragmentarily.
What might be called its "scientistic" features became a lasting
part of subsequent positivist thought: the Law of the Three
States, the rejection of metaphysics, faith in the essential unity of
the scieuces, the ideal (actually unattainable, as Comte himself
admitted; a normative guideline rather than a program) of re-
ducing all knowledge to a single universal formula, and the in-
terpretation of knowledge as ultimately of practical value or
nothing. Comte's sociology has turned out to be important, not
so much for its historiosophic content as for its clear formula-
tion of methodological principles that have subsequently been
adopted by many sociologists. These include the treatment of
social facts as realities sui generis, independently of their psychic
background; ahandonment of the social-contract theory; the
treatment of human thought, science, belief, and modes of be-
havior as social facts par excellence-that is, as referring not to
individuals but to the collectivity.
The Law of the Three States is in rongh approximation cor-
rect concerning the history of science. Comte formulated the
tendencies characteristic of modern scientlfic knowledge in
periods of normal development, though at certain critical mo-
ments it unexpecteclly discloses more in common with philo-
sophical thought than Comte suspected. His basically phenome-
nalist attitude to the world (we do not penetrate into the "nature"
of things or investigate underlying "canses," but merely boil
down the multiplicity of phenomena to "laws") long seemed
AUGUSTE COMTE
merely to represent the actnal attitude of researches in a number
of fields of knowledge. It was some time before doubts arose
concerning the notion of "fact," the fetish that Comte took for
granted as self-evident. Eventually such doubts led to abandoning
the conception of science as a fact-gathering activity purely and
simply, an agency whose task has ended once "laws" summing
up the facts have been arrived at.
To be sure, some parts of the Comtean doctrine that strike
us as absurd today (apodictic pronouncements as to what science
may and may not concern itself with, the dogmatic rejection of
certain fields of knowledge as unproductive or "metaphysical,"
belief in the absolute permanence of the basic divisions of the
world and fascination with botanical and zoological classifica-
tions as models of scientific thinking, excessive enthusiasm for
"order," the picture of the world as made up of neatly labeled,
indexed, filed "contents") are not direct consequences from
positivist premises. Nevertheless, they demonstrate one possible
way-a way that remains possible today-of interpreting those
premises, a way that could endanger the progress of knowledge
if taken seriously. Comte realized, of course, that scientific re-
search cannot be carried on in flat obedience to immediate
practical demands, that it must be guided by purely theoretical
considerations in order ultimately to produce practical results;
he grasped that the most fruitful discoveries in the history of
science, including those that underlie all our latter-day technol-
ogy, were born of cognitive curiosity. More than that, he was
a,.vare that the "theolocricar' and the "n1ctaohvsicaI" staobes of
" ' 0
human thought were preconditions for science's eventual "posi-
tive" flowering. For all that, when he turns to consideration of
the new era his own work opens up, in which the totality of
knowledge-as represented by its final component, sociology-
has entered the positive stage, his historicism suddenly becomes
impotent, and all his previous reservations disappear. Everything
relative in scientific development now becomes a thing of the
past, and now that the absolute state has been attained (at least
in respect to basic principles) there is no further place for his-
torical criteria. Like other Messianic doctrines, Comte's scientis-
tic one never considered the chance that it might in time itself
become a matter for historical appraisal and relativization.
Comte had an admirable historical understanding of everything
except his own place in history.
We have no reason to wonder whether this philosophy has a
right to be called positivist-even measuring it against the stereo-
type of positivism current in onr own day. It is a positivism,
though largely expressed in categories typical of the epoch that
produced Hegel and Romantic philosophy generally. It repre-
sents an all-embracing historiosophic construction, crowned by
a Messianic vision all its own. This construction is actually deter-
ministic in character although it renounces metaphysically con-
ceived causality in favor of phenomenalistically interpreted
laws. It also holds out the hope of a total transformation of
the world and the impending advent of the absolute state, thanks
to the advance of scientific knowledge. Its rehabilitation of
Christianity and medieval culture connects it with other pro-
ductions of the Romantic era, although in Comte this has a sense
all its own. His is no worship of the past as such, no respect
for tradition merely because it is tradition: after all, he recog-
nizes real progress even in respect to religious forms and hence
the authentic historical continuity of tbe human species. On this
score he breaks away from the eighteenth-century cliche of "the
ages of darkness and superstition." Also, Comte's scientistic
ideals are combined with a firm conviction that man is es-
sentially an affective being-that only affective stimuli induce
him to act, and that rational thought is at the service of practical
needs. On the other hand, Comte believed that it is possible to
achieve a state in which mankind, having clearly recognized its
own invariable needs, will effectively barmonize emotional needs
with rational prediction, and thus be transformed into an "or-
ganic" mankind within which conflicts will cease to arise.
The last-mentioned ideal also presupposes the interpretation of
AUGUSTE COMTE
7'
man as a being whose existence is completely determined by
his place in society, i.e., that, strictly speaking, individual exist-
ence is a fictioll. On this score, too, Comte does not hesitate
to carry his premises to their ultimate consequences. His "or-
ganic" interpretation of society involves the extremest anti-in-
dividualism, derealization of the human individual, worship of
Humanity as the only real individual-all this is explicitly for-
mulated in his writings. In this respect, Comteanism brings to
mind certain totalitarian utopias elaborated in the age of the En-
lightenment. However, these components of Comte's docuine,
which ally him with conservative critics of the French Revolu-
tion, and which later became essential convictions of the totalitar-
ian Right, do not really make him a prototype of the totalitarian
ideologies: the latter have been expressed in much "purer"
form by determined apologists for the past who did not wrap
them up, so to speak, as Comte does, in scientistic ideals. The real
influence of Comte's thought has centered around two strands
within his docuine-his anti-metaphysical program for Imowl-
edge, and his autonomous, anti-psychological sociology. The
generations immediately after him, as is so often the case, broke
up the organic unity of his doctrine, picking out what they could
use, ignoring what they could not. Thus Comte, tbe utopian
visionary, the fanatic for a "once and for all" social order, the
pope of a "finished" system of thought, is one thing-the
Comte who has considerably influenced latter-day sociology
and the theory of science something else again. However, if the
history of positivism is to be understood, it is important to keep
in mind, not just this more "viable" Comte, but also the "forgot-
ten" Comte-not just because the latter demonstrates the depend-
ence of each successive version of positivist philosophy upon
the dominant "style of the age," but also because conceptions of
positive knowledge and ideals of social reform have always been
logically connected in this doctrine, and it is hard to achieve his-
torical nnderstanding of either apart from the other. Comte's
philosophy does away with human subjectivity entirely. Person-
ality in the suhjective sense is a specnlative fiction from the
point of view of the criteria of positive science; it is also a
fiction from the sociological point of view, and can be treated
as such in projects for social reconstruction. As a theorist of
science, Comte is in fact heir to Hume and ancestor of many
a subsequent positivist doctrine. As for his social theory, it
certainly does not follow logically from his theory of science,
but the link between the two was so close and so explicit in
Comte's own mind that it is impossible to disregard it. Positivist
criteria, in characterizing the human individual exclusively by
his objectively ascertainable place in inter-individual communica-
tion, have invalidated, so to speak, subjective individuality as a
possible object of study. Thereby they have made an irreversi-
ble contribution to the establishment of new boundaries between
science and philosophy, though they have not as yet succeeded
in destroying the latter once and for all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Positivism Triumphant
Durino- the ten years followino- Comte's death, European cul-
b. b
ture was euriched by the following works, among others: The
Origin .of Species by Charles Darwin, Introduction to Experi-
mental Medicine by Claude Bernard, Utilitarianism by John
Stuart Mill, the first volumes of Herbert Spencer's System, and
the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx. In their different ways,
each illustrates a trend away from Comte's utopianism.
The Messianic hopes cherished in the period known as the
"Springtime of Nations" were now in eclipse, utopian socialism
among them. A more empirical, experimental approach to social
phenomena was finding expression. Socialist thonght was ceasing
to be a collection of visionary dreams and, instead, waS draw-
ing strength from slow but real advances being made by work-
ing-dass movements. In the sciences, a number of recent dis-
coveries suggested that a new synthesis was becoming possible,
that there was a basis for unifying the ever proliferating, ever
more tightly "specialized" sciences. The principle of the con-
servation of energy supplied one such formula, applying, as it
seemed to do, to all natural phenomena. The theory of evolution
was another, for it encompassed the totality of organic phenom-
ena, induding human life. Advances in the biological sciences
were especially notable at this time, and deeply influenced cer-
tain aspects of positivist thought.
I. Claude Bernard: The native positivism of science. The
thought of Claude Bernard in particular illustrates the impact
74
of developments in biology and the trend away from the more
grandiose aspects of Auguste Comte's positivism. Although be
had literary ambitions in his youth, Clande Bernard (I81)-I878)
was not a philosopher even in intention. His life was devoted to
research in the fields of medicine and physiology, which earned
him worldwide fame. At the same time, however, he gave note-
worthy expression to "the scientific attitude," and himself sup-
plied a model of it. Tireless and scrupulous in experimental
research, he exemplified modesty and impersonality in the mak-
ing of scientific claims and remained deliberately, consistently
nentral on all philosophical questions.
His discovery of the glycogenic function of the liver, his
studies of the pancreas and tbe physiology of the nervous sys-
tem, and of the action of such poisons as curare and carbon
monoxide-these are regarded, not just as essential contributions
to physiology, but as marking a real turning point in the history
of science. The principles of scientific method and rules of ex-
perimental procedure he set down in his Introduction to Ex-
perimental Medicine and some shorter works have become the
canon of modern scientific method and of the positivist tradi-
tion.
Claude Bernard was highly critical of Comte's doctrine. In
his view, the religion of humanity was even more absurd than
the already existing religions, and he did not believe that Comte's
"positive state" could ever become historical reality. He took
the line that human beings will never cease to reflect on the
first causes and to search for a purposeful order in the condi-
tions of their existence, bnt that snch reflection and such search
for meaning fall ontside the domain of knowledge. 1nsolnble
problems have no place in science. Actually, were "first causes"
ever to be discovered, something like the end of the world wonld
have come about, for there would be no spur to futther in-
vestigation. Mankind would have attained the Absolute. F ortu-
nately, there is no reason to take such a prospect serionsly.
Nonetheless there is a certain relation to Comte in the more
POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT
75
fundamental features of Bernard's thinking, for all that they
derived from his own experimental research rather than from
tbe writings of Augnste Comte. His basic rules of scientific
method can be stated in a few simple sentences:
First, the scientist shonld submit unreservedly to the facts,
and sacrifice without hesitation any theory that is clearly in-
compatible with the facts.
Second, scientific investigation can be effective only on the
assumption that all phenomena are strictly determined. This de-
terminism, however, is not a metaphysical theory of the universal
inevitability of things, but rather a rule of thnmb, a methodologi-
cal principle. It assumes that the same phenomena occnr under
the same conditions, and that if the results of an experiment
are unexpected, we should look for unknown conditions to
acconnt for them. The purpose of science is to discover rela-
tionships between phenomena and the conditions under which
they occnr, to ascertain links between matters of fact and the
mechanisms that govern their occurrence. For this pnrpose, we
are to refrain from any and all reflection on "underlying prin-
ciples," and are never to ask "Why?"
Third, science is absolutely neutral where philosophical ques-
tions are concerned. Whether materialist or "animistic" (in
Claude Bernard's terminology), metaphysics bas no heuristic
value for positive knowledge; nor is it possible to formnlate any
metaphysics in such a way as to permit experimental verifica-
tion. Although philosophic thinking is a "natnral" phenomenon
in the sense that it reflects a real need of the human mind, it
may not assign limits to science nor ask science to solve
chimerical problems.
Fourth, one crncial way of settling scientific questions is the
method Claude Bernard called "counter-proof." Here he formu-
lated an idea that is perhaps more widely known today in Karl
Popper's formulation of it: No scientific hypothesis can be re-
garded as established sO long as the scientist knows only the
facts that confirm it and has not undertaken to discover facts
that disprove it. Educationally speaking, the principle is an
essential one: setting up experiments to disprove a given hy-
pothesis is a fundamental featnre of "scientific morality." Ignor-
ing it is to enconrage the all-too-hnman tendency to facile ex-
planation, rash generalization.
"The whole of natnral philosophy is summed up in a single
phrase: to discover the laws that govern phenomena. Even the
most elaborate experiment comes down to predicting and Con-
trolling phenomena." These words most concisely sum up
Claude Bernard's thought and at the Same time show its essential
affinity with Comte's. Science is inconceivable without determin-
ism, but the latter is taken in a purely phenomenalist sense:
in order to formnlate any laws at all, we have to assume that
identical conditions produce identical phenomena; science ad-
mits of no accidental occurrences or "exceptions" to its "rules"
-if by this term we mean anything more than our ignorance
of the factors that alter the COurse of the phenomenon observed.
Furthermore, Claude Bernard believed that once biology has
rid itself of metaphysical "vital principles," final causes, un-
productive, purely verbal disputes as to the meaning of life, and
adherence to auy and all confining "systems" whether of thought
or feeling-then we will become aware of the homogeneity all
phenomena display and be better eqnipped to describe them as
such. What appears as a distinction between two cognitive and
existential orders-the organic and the inorganic-derives from
vitalistic prejudices. In the eyes of science life is not the product
of some distinct mysterious force: it is a continuous process of
combustion and assimilation, and although it is governed by
regnlarities that neither physical nor chemical laws account for
-above all the evolutionary properties that determine the de-
velopment of a seed in one specific way (the "egg's memory")
-these regnlarities can be ascertained only as an empirical se-
quence of morphological and chemical changes, just as in any
other scientific domain. The ultimate cause of invariability in
organic development is not a legitimate object of scientific i11-
77
quiry. Human thought, toO, is a biological fact. The brain is an
organ like the others, and thinking is an organic function,not
some mysterious product of some mysterious subjectivity.
Scientific interpretation of the evidence cannot lead to any other
conclusion.
Yet Claude Bernard did not regard scientific activity as purely
utilitarian. Although the social purpose of science is to enable us
to manipulate things, he does not seem to conclude from this
that the meaning of empirical statements is reduced to practical
directives. Snch statements describe that part of the real world
that is accessible to human cognition. The scientist devises ex-
periments and advances hypotheses, but when it comes to de-
scribing his results he must keep his personal involvement to a
minimum and be completely obedient to nature's indications.
Claude Bernard was aware that it is easier to formulate this
principle than to apply it in practice: it demands an attitude of
constant and utmost alerrness against preconceived ideas, per-
sonal preferences, and the authority of men and words. He also
warned against abuse of the classificatory principle. It is not
enough to label a phenomenon and assign it a subdivision
in a rank order. It is not correct classification that matters, but
nnderstanding the mechanism governing the phenomena.
Claude Bernard was not overconcerned with perfect pre-
cision in his reflections on scientific method. He merely took
cognizance of the rules that gnided him in his work and that he
had found adequate. First he investigated, then reflected on
what he waS doing; to reverse this order, as Bergson subse-
quently observed, never produces results. He took the notion of
"fact" for granted and knew what he had in mind. Many of his
ideas have an "unfinished" character, and many were elaborated
more carefully by later methodologists. The special role his
Int1'Oduction has played in the history of scientific method is
due to the fact that it was a direct outgrowth of his laboratory
investigations, not the work of a methodologist who prescribes
rules for scientists while doing no scientific research himself.
Also, his formulations reflected the needs of contemporary
science.
This is not the place to evaluate Claude Bernard's contribution
to a so-called methodology of science. His importance in philo-
sophical reflection consists in tIus, that he was perhaps the first
to formulate so clearly the dividing line between philosophy
and science. He made no attack on philosophy, but simply
regarded it as a different kind of activity from scientific re-
search. Though plulosophy may now and then stimulate an
individual scientist (not by supplying hypotheses to be tested,
but by engaging his feelings and intellectual interests), it can
never hope to define the tasks of science or acconnt for the
results of research. This separation between science and philoso-
phy, not surprisingly, has been interpreted in different ways. It
has been maintained that specifically philosophic statements are
meaningless, devoid of cognitive content, socially harmful. It
has also been maintained that the task of philosophy is to pro-
vide interpretations of reality that cannot be provided by
scientific methods, even that philosophy gains access to spheres
of being inaccessible to scientific investigation. However, the
point of view that Claude Bernard expounded in especially
striking form became permanently rooted among both scientists
and philosophers, with very few exceptions. Bergson, Husserl,
and Heidegger, who have seriously criticized the extremer forms
of "scientism," all take the separation for granted.
2. A positivist ethics: John Stuart Mill. For a very long time
the English did not read German writers, so their own reflee-
tions are not attempts to refute or go beyond the doctrines of
the German idealist metaphysicians. In this respect England
differed from France, or at least English thinkers from French
philosophers. This is why nineteenth-century English philoso-
phy shows an easily discernible continuity with its own tradition
of the Enlightenment. The empiricism of John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873) does not differ essentially from Hume's. We shall
therefore confine ourselves to a very brief exposition of his
79
thought, concentrating on those parts that disclose a new aspect
of the "positivist spirit," namely, his utilitarian ethics.
Like Comte, John Stuart Mill was interested in the practical
reform of society. Comte's work at first made a tremendous
impression on him, and in fundamental questions pertaining to
the theory of knowledge he shared Comte's ideas; not so in the
field of sociology, however, nor in projects for the futnre organi-
zation of society. Comte's social system, Mill says, "as unfolded
in his Systeme de Politique Positive, aims at establishing ...
a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything
contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinar-
ians among the philosophers." As for his own social views, he
writes that at first he had thought it possible to temper social
inequalities by universal instruction and limitation of natural
population growth; he had been, as he puts it, a democrat but
not a socialist. With time he reached the conviction that a
considerably greater transformation is both possihle and neces-
sary, and that the essential question the future mnst settle is
that of how to combine the greatest possible individual freedom
of action with common possession of the world's raw materials
and equal shares to all men of the profits derived from work
performed in common. Thus Mill's social thinking took a
socialist direction, although he never supposed his ideals could
be realized in any way save through slow, gradual reforms.
Mill's philosophical work was intended as part of his educa-
tional activity in the popularization of his ideals. He regarded
his System of Logic-an extremely long, extremely pedantic
book, unusually precise by the standards of his age-as his
contribution to the struggle against superstition, outmoded tra-
dition, and uncritically accepted opinion. He thought that false
metaphysical and social doctrines, like harmful political institu-
tions, are based primarily on the belief that the human mind
can arrive at true knowledge of the world without observation
and experience. Accordingly, his logic is built upon radically
empiricist prenilses and on associational psychology; he con-
sidered the latter to be the foundation of all rational knowledge
about man.
The leading ideas of Mill's theory of knowledge derive
directly from Burne, although his logic in the strict sense in-
troduces many novelties and improvements that are regarded as
marking great progress in the history of this discipline. Be
defined the task of logic more exactly than his predecessors. In
his opinion it formnlates the mles of reasoning, and is not a
description of the world; be also drew a dear distinction be-
tween logic and tbe tbeory of knowledge. According to him,
the rnles of reasoning are valid because tbey are the laws of tbe
psycbology or pbysiology of thinking. This tbeory, called
psychologism, dominated logicians down to the beginning of
tbe twentieth century when Busserl's radical criticism of it
caused it to be almost completely abandoned. Mill's formulation
and detailed exposition of the canons of inductive reasoning in
the empirical sciences are held to be important achievements;
these canons are considerably more exact than tbose previously
expounded by Francis Bacon. By way of investigating similari-
ties, differences, and parallel changes in events, they are in-
tended to ascertain causal connections between pbenomena.
Tbey are rules for testing hypotheses ratber than rules for dis-
covering previously unknown regnlarities, and are modeled on
the methods actually used by scientists. Mill did not ascribe any
metaphysical meaning to the concept of "cause," he interpreted
it in a purely empirical sense: i.e., roughly speaking, to him a
cause is any phenomenon that observation discloses to be the
sufficient condition of anotber phenomenon. Mill's entire theory
is based on strict adberence to the rules of empiricism and
associationism: what is actually given in human knowledge is
individual impressions; the cognitive subject is merely a sequence
of impressions, and external bodies are never experienced in any
other way. The existence of the pbysical world is reduced to
the constant possibility of the impressions we experience, and in
this perspective tbe metapbysical problem in the strict sense
POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT 81
does not arise. The main purpose of science is to group its
trutbs in such a way as to enable us to encompass at one glance
the greatest possihle range of tbe nniversal order. On one essential
point Mill's empiricism is carried fartber tban Hume's: accord-
ing to Mill, the so-called deductive sciences, too, are entirely
based on experience (be is not clear about tbe difference between
the question of method and tbat of origin). Tbe "necessity"
attributed to mathematical propositions is an illusion, for tbe
axioms referred to by any deductive reasoning are in reality
results of experience. Thus, altbougb buman knowledge is taking
on an increasingly deductive character, deductive reasoning
merely serves to make tbinking easier, to combine-automatically,
as it were-various observations in order to give tbem coher-
ence. For instance, Mill says, if b always follows a, and c
always follows b, we may infer that a will always be followed
by C; this is an elementary deductive reasoning, and the rule
permitting this inference itself derives from observation. But
there are no truths a priori, Le., truths whose alleged necessity
can be established witbout appealing to observation; the elemen-
tary trutbs of geometry are merely the results of observation.
The syllogism does not lead to new knowledge, since its conclu-
sion is always implicit in the premises; we must know the conclu-
sion before we can formulate tbe premises, and so syllogistic rea-
soning is caugbt up in a vicious circle.
Mill's empiricist doctrine is most clearly associated with his
ideas in the domain of "practical reason." Tbe same tendency
that in science does away witb metapbysics in favor of psycbol-
ogy, in ethics does away with valuation based on intention in
favor of valuation based on results. Mill's essay on this ethical
doctrine is entitled Utilitarianism.
Tbe essential principles of utilitarianism were not originated
by Mill. Jeremy Bentbam (1748-1832) had expounded tbem in
his Principles of Morals and Legislation and other works.
Bentbam carried the ideas of the Enlightenment practically
uncbanged into the nineteenth century. His enormous inRuence
on English political thonght snggests that in England the bound-
ary between the culture of the Enlightenment and the cultnre of
the industrial nineteenth centnry was far less clearly drawn than
on the Continent.
Benthanl was primarily interested in legislation because he
believed that rational laws based on the psychological laws of
association will unfailingly secure the domiuance of moral
patterns of conduct in society. One of his titles to fame was a
project for a model prison. However, all his life he sought to
allay the rigors and abolish the cruelties of the penal system.
And he constantly reflected on how to devise legislation to
bring security and prosperity to all.
Bentham's utilitarian ethics is founded on a purely descriptive
statement. It says that human behavior is entirely motivated
by the desire to gain pleasure and shnn pain. Utilitarianism
takes this fact for granted as the foundation of its social doctrine.
Utilitarianism itself is a normative formula, according to which
human actions are praiseworthy or the reverse depending on
whether they increase or decrease the sum of human happiness.
It must be added that to Bentham the terms "the good,"
"pleasure," "utility," and "profit" are synonymous. The interest
of society is identical with the interests of the individuals who
make it up. The principle of utility applies universally, without
exception, in both private and public relations, and from it we
can derive norms regnlating every sphere of human life. The
principle itself cannot be proved, but shonld be sct down at the
beginning of every demonstration; after all we cannot ask for
proofs ad infinitnm. The principle of utility has this advantage,
that everyone is actually gnided by it, as is apparent from the
fact that even its critics unconsciously appeal to it. For instance,
ascetic morality, which is seemingly at the opposite pole from
the principle of ntility, rests upon the same principle though
falsely interpreted: those who profess such a morality have
observed that the pursuit of pleasure is often accompanied hy
unpleasant experiences, and they absolutize this ohservation in
the rule that bids us refrain from all pleasures in order to avoid
pain. In other words, they apply the same principle, only they
fail to live up to it. Similarly those who place the will of God
above the principle of utility are actually appealing to the latter.
For how do they decide what is the will of God? By showing
that it is just, hence good, hence useful. In short the criterion of
utility is applied so universally that what is needed is not so
much to prove it as to become conscious of its implications and
to ascertain the factual circumstances of life in order to apply it
infallibly. Therefore Bentham imagined that once the sources
and varieties of pleasure and pain have been properly classified-
which is the very undertaking he set himself-and once a scale
for measuring them according to a few criteria has been de-
signed (intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity
or remoteness, fecundity, purity, extent), then it will be possible
to apply rules derived from the basic principle in every particular
connection and to decide infallibly concerning the value of
every human action.
This theory, derived from Hume, Helvetius, and Beccaria,
was intended to supply the rational foundations for a perfect
moral code in which every human action could be properly
evaluated. As a result, legislation and ethics were to become as
exact as the mathematical sciences.
Clearly, Bentham's confidence in the normative omnipotence
of the principle of utility was rooted in the Enlightenment's
belief in an essential harmony between individual aspirations
and the social interest, and in the possibility of doing away with
all social conflicts by means of rational legislation. We need not
add that whereas Bentham appealed to the principle of utility in
order to defend parliamentary democracy, others (for instance,
Godwin) in the name of the same principle advocated the ideals
of an egalitarian anarchism or even purely theological doctrines.<
One of the active propagators of Benthamism was James
Mill, whose son, John Stuart Mill, took over this doctrine and
introduced a number of corrections and further distinctions in
response to criticisms and for polemical purposes. But the main
tenets remained as before. Mill agreed that the supreme rule
governing human actions-in other words, the supreme value or
ultimate purpose of life-cannot he proved: whether a thing is
good in itself, not just as a means to an end, lies beyond
discussion, is by definition unprovable. But recognition of the
principle of utility is not the result of caprice or arbitrary
decision, it rests upon an immediate, universal, and uniformly
accessible intnition (not of the kind operating in particular
observations, but rather of the kind that underlies our recogni-
tion of the axiomatic truths of science). The only "proof" that
happiness is desirable is the circumstance that mankind does in
fact desire it: similarly, the only way to prove that a thing is
visible is to show that we do in fact see it. In turn, if we are
to make infallible decisions in conflictual situations, if the moral
code is to operate efficiently and settle all particular cases un-
equivocally, the basic principle, i.e., the supreme value, must be
one and one only: or, if there has to be more than one, then the
principles must be arranged in a clear hierarchical order.
The ultimate purpose of every kind of valuation and every
kind of commandment or prohibition is a life as free of suffering
and abounding in as many of the highest pleasures as possible.
"Pleasures" and "pains" are not to be taken here in a purely
biological sense: the principle of utility encompasses specifically
human exl'eriences, which we usually value higher than those
that animals share with us. The last-mentioned rule, too, is based
on universal consensus: after all, no one would agree to ex-
change the fate of an unsatisfied man for that of a satisfied
animaL
There remains the question of rnles governing particular
choices, which requires exact standards for comparing alter-
native goods. In this matter, according to Mill, we should
consult the opinion of men who have tried both of two possible
alternatives. The principle of utility affords a rational basis for
choosing between different kinds of conduct, both conceivably
desirable. 1 some choices are nonetheless hard to make, this is
due to the complexity of human relationships. However, there is
nothing to prevent us from continually improving on the various
rules for our guidance, and we may hope one day to achieve
perfect exactitude in this matter.
"Utility" or "happiness" is defined as the supreme value not
in respect of the individual, but of all men: morality is the
system of rules that envisages the greatest happiness of all: it
is assumed that all specifically human pleasures are accessible to
every man individually. Mill was convinced that the basic sources
of suffering-poverty, sickness, failure-can be completely con-
trolled. The utilitarian rule does not exclude the value of
sacrifice insofar as it may be useful to someone, and insofar as it
does not denote self-inflicted suffering for another purpose. The
motives of our actions are not the object of moral rules: they
refer to the rule of dury, but it is not assumed that a mode of
conduct must be motivated by a sense of dnty for it to be moral.
The criteria of utilitarianism do not refer to the value of the
agent, but to the consequences of his actions: evaluation of the
action and of the agent are independent of each other, although
value of an individual can be determined only on the basis of his
conduct as a whole.
Mill did not in the least set out to change current nonns of
behavior or to invalidate recognized values. On the contrary, he
believed that values asserted by other doctrines could be readily
integrated in the utilitarian code. For instance, the value of
justice, i.e., the conviction that certain claims are legitimate,
is unchanged: it is enough to ascertain that every kind of claim
can be evaluated by the standard of universal utility.
Such, briefly stated, is the utilitarian theory. As can be seen,
it is based on the following assumptions, among others:
I. The objects of moral valuations are not moral values but
other kinds of value.
2. It is possible to compare all human goods without exception,
86
i.e., it is possible to discover a rule that reduces all goods to a
certain homogeneous scale.
3 There is a universal and primary intuition that justifies the
principle of utility.
All these assumptions have been subjected to criticism. Ad-
herents of Kantian and other transcendental ethics have re-
jected utilitarianism chiefly on account of the first of the as-
sumptions mentioned. According to them, this doctrine ignores
or even excludes specifically moral motivations-those that Kant
particularly stressed when he said we must do our dutv because
. . ,
It IS a duty, not for any other reason, at least if our conduct is to
deserve moral approval, whereas urilitarianism bids us evaluate
human actions by their consequences, so that an action per-
formed out of a sense of duty has the same moral value as the
same action performed out of vanity or under constraint. In the
eyes of those brought up in the spirit of Kantianism, this idea
simply annihilates moral values as separate and distinct from
biological values. Although Mill distinguishes between the value
of the action and that of the agent, the distinction as he inter-
prets it does not get around this objection, since evaluation of
the agent coincides with evaluation of a large nnmber of his
actions.
Other critics do not regard this objection as essential. They
agree that in the overwhelming majority of Cases it is hard to
discover other practical standards of evaluation in our world.
But they object to two other features of the utilitarian doctrine.
The first, they feel, is a sort of mystification involved in the
utilitarian claim to cognitive grounds. The falseness of Mill's
analogy between the relation "seen-visible" and the relation
"desired-desirable" is so obvious that it scarcely needs to be
mentioned (what is "visible" is that which can be seen, not that
w ~ l i c h desc:ves to be seen). Less glaringly false but equally
mIsleading IS another principle on which the utilitarians rely a
great deal, and which they take for a descriptive statement of
human conduct: "Men always strive for happiness." Close
scrntiny shows readily enough that every kind of human con-
duct confirms this thesis (a man who strives for suffering
obviously finds happiness in suffering, a man who sacrifices him-
self obviously finds a source of pleasure in sacrifice, etc.). In other
words, this theory, just like the old doctrine according to which
"man is always selfish," can always be justified because it is at
bottom tautological: it does not discover any specific characteris-
tic in empirically known varieties of human conduct but merely
calls "happiness" that which men strive for. The doctrine can-
not be refuted, that is, it is impossible to point to any conceivable
fact that would contradict it; any conceivable fact will always
confirm it. Thus the theory does not meet the condition required
of really empirical assertions: it is a definition presented in the
gnise of a description. For this reason it cannot Serve as a
descriptive premise indispensable to any normative code; yet
Mill maintains that the supreme rnle of utilitarianism comes
down to the assertion that there is an innate impulse to happiness
in all human beings. Since this alleged discovery is a purely
tautological statement, it cannot serve as fouudation for an
effectively applicable code of moral standards.
The second, perhaps more important objection, emphasizes
the utter uselessness of Mill's theory in practice. To accept it we
must believe that a common measure for all values is to be
discovered in the human world, that it is possible to put some-
thing like an exchange valne on emotional qualities, reducing
them all to one single quantitatively measnrable characteristic
("pleasure"). Could this really be done, moral conflicts could
indeed be eliminated, for it would be possible to calculate which
of any pair of alternate possibilities of human conduct is the
more valuable in a given situation. But the conception of one
uniform scale of values is altogether fictitious, and on this score
utilitarianism is as hopeless as all monistic normative systems
(i.e., those that seek to set up a single principle of valuation
capable of arriving at infallible moral decisions in any and
every concrete situation). The world of values is differentiated
qualitatively, and any single standard of valuation is arbitrary
and artificial. Human conflicts are caused by the lack of uni-
formity with which simations demanding choice present them-
selves. One example of this lack of uniformity is the irreducibility
of hnman individuals to a single scale, and hence the impossibiliry
of deciding which of two individuals' goods carries the greater
weight in a given simation when each of them experiences the
simation in his own way. Even if we could predict what pains
will be linked witb the pleasures expected-and, as is well known,
such predictions are highly fallible-we could never manage to
draw up sum totals of the positive and the negative possibilities
and compare them like debit and credit columns in double-entry
bookkeeping. In acmal fact our choices are guided by vague
inmition or spontaneous impulse, and familiarity with the utilitar-
ian principle is of no help in making a rational choice. This is
why the utilitarian philosophy is incapable of resolving real con-
flicts and ineffective as an education in morals.
The utilitarian philosophy is rooted in the conviction that
all human conflicts are traceable to insufficient knowledge, and
that proper public instruction may result in a rational organiza-
tion of the juridical system, and by the same tnken settle all
conflicts between individual interests as well as between in-
dividual and social needs. Thus, at bottom, the utilitarian pro-
gram relies on an implicit belief, characteristic of democratic
philosophies, that all the values and qualities to be taken into
account when we reflect upon society are those common to all
meu, i.e., those that refer to the undifferentiated notion of "man"
or '(mankind,"
This is not to imply in any way that utilitarianism reflects
totalitarian aspirations .(though this may be suggested by Ben-
tham's contempt for the metaphysics of "human rights"). What
distingnishes Mill is, on the contrary, his championing of the
greatest possible individual freedom in a rationally organized
world. However, like the majority of nineteenth-century demo-
crats, Mill treats human individuals as abstract and essentially
uniform elements in the juridicial system; that is, he believes
that when individual freedom is as fully realized as possible
(limited only by the rule that it must do no harr,n to others), tbe
interests of all can be harmonized once a suffiCIently bIgh level
of edncation is reached. In this system the human individual
appears as the embodiment of the universal abstract essence of
man plus a modicum of private preferences WhICh
him from others, and which he is left free to exerCIse prOVIded
that his freedom is not incompatible with the rational interests
of others. Man is conceived of as a sum total of specific generic
needs and a few private needs, and it is assumed . his
generic needs can be satisfied by an intelligent socbl orgamzatlon,
while his private needs can be reduced to the pomt where they
will not matter to others, as is the case with a person's general
appearance, color of hair, etc. . .,
In the light of experience that shows how strongly !llcl!;Iduals
can be affected by their desire to impose their bebefs or
their own conception of happiness, aU these assumptions appear
more than dubious. However, they were in keepmg wlth the
spirit of the times that produced them, especially in England.
The utilitarian conviction that all values are measurable IS merely
tbe resolve to recognize as value only that which is measurable.
The anti-Romantic tendency expressed in this statement be
discerned both in latter-day positivist philosophy and m the
literary current usual! y associated with it. In this vie":,, .every
kind of irrationality is an evil, but an evil that can be ehmmated
by the progress public enlightenment .. Even the severest
criticism of the world does not, In these Circumstances, under-
mine the fundamental optimism of such a view of h'lman affairs.
3. Herbert Spencer: evolutionary positivism. We have already
had occasion to mention the tremendous influence exerted on
positivism by the biological sciences in second !,alf of the
nineteenth cenmry. The theory of evolutIOn contrIbuted cru-
cially to conSOlidating the image of a world in which all situations
in human life can be reduced to biological situations, and all
human institutions to instruments for biological survival. Thus
it immensely strengthened and, so to speak, added a substructure
to, an essential tendency that had long been inherent in the
positivist style of thinking, and made it possible for the latter to
take on a more exact and more fn!!y elaborated form.
Lamarck's theory of evolntion was based primarily on ohser-
vation of morphological abnormalities in the development of
animals and viewed these abnormalities as results of adaptation.
In this sense the evolntionary processes were goverued by a
kind of immanent teleology. By contrast, Darwin's theory of
natural selection was in part conceived nnder the inflnence of
Malthus's reflections on specifically human phenomena. Darwin
assumed that the changes that occur in generic characteristics
have a mutational, accidental character, and that only snbse-
qnently do certain of these changes turn ant to be useful, others
harmfnl, to the existence of the genns. The usefnl changes are
inherited, and in this way the best-adapted popnlations-but
adapted as a result of accidental variations-survive in the struggle
for existence, whereas others, which had happened to acqnire
harmful characteristics, are doomed to extinction. The survival
of the human species, too, can be accounted for within this
schema, and specifically human characteristics-among them
moral motivations and codes, religious beliefs, intelligent actions
-can be interpreted in terms of biological usefulness, as in-
struments of the efficient adaptation that has secured for man-
kind sucb overwhelming superiority in the over-all ecology of
the planet.
Discovery of links between man and the rest of organic
nature, the possibility of interpreting specifically human capaci-
ties and institutions as instrumentalities for the satisfaction of
biological needs, the inclusion of reason and civilization within
the ecological situation of the species-all this favored tendencies
characteristic of the positivist style of pllllosophizing. The
theory of evolution made it possible for positivist thought to go
beyond methodological programs and to apply our knowledge of
POSITIVISM TRIUMPHANT 9
'
biologieal regularities to all types of human conduct and creation.
One synthetic conception of this way of thinking is to be found
in Herbert Spencer's works.
However, Spencer (1820-1903) attempted to formulate the
theory of evolution in such a form as to encompass not only
organic nature but all spheres of existence, and he treated their
transformations not merely as individual instances of the opera-
tion of identical evolutionary laws, but as aspects of one and
the same process gradually extending to ever more differentiated
areas of the world. The universality of evolution does not
therefore merely come down to structural analogies between
different lines of development, but to their all being dependent
upon one and the same energy. According to Spencer, the
guiding ideal of knowledge is to reduce it to a single formula
or "supreme law," in other words, to account for the totality of
phenomena by the operation of one and the same force. In a
unified science unlike or qualitatively differentiated forms of
, ,
transformation could be expressed in the same language. Like
many positivists, Spencer looked forward to a systematic re-
duction of knowledge, thanks to which the seemingly irreduci-
ble multifariousness of the world will appear as different mani-
festations of one and the same cause.
Philosophy is to perform this task of unifying all knowledge.
With a certain number of basic truths at its disposal-the in-
destructibility of matter, the continnity of motion, and the
constancy of force (Spencer's conception of force does not
coincide with that of physics and is not free of a certain
vagueness)-philosophy looks for synthetic truths to encom-
pass every sphere of investigation. It discovers certain laws
equally applicahle to all. One of these laws, for instance, says
that movement takes the line of least resistance. Another asserts
that matter and motion are continuously redistributed, that
integration of matter is always concomitant with dissipation of
motion, and vice versa; thus constant transformations take place
ill the universe, consisting now in integration with concomitant
loss of Illotion, now in disintegration with concomitant increase
of motion.
We observe tbese two kinds of phenomena as evolution and
dissolution, but evolution does not come down simply to an
integrating process. It also-and primarily-consists in differen-
tiation, in steadily increasing heterogeneity. At the same time,
evolution is a single process, not a number of similar trans-
formations; when the whole evolves, its components evolve, not
in accordance with any principle of analogy, but as a result of
a single energetic process. The evolution of the solar system is
a part, not an analogon, of the evolution of the universe; the
same applies to the evolution of the earth, of living organisms,
of the human species, of society.
Thanks to this knowledge we can construct a concept of
progress free of value judgment, and heuce ascertain what
transformations deserve to be called progress without appealing
to our own human interests. The standards supplied by the
general theory of evolution are exact on this score. The nature
of progress consists in increasing differentiation, i.e., passing
from homogeneous to ever more heterogeneous structnres.
Within the range of knowledge accessible to us, we observe this
first in the history of the solar system: an originally homogene-
ous mass hegan to condense at certain points; this was followed
hy in density and temperatnre, and later by
rotatIonal movements. The history of the earth is a continuation
of the same process: a homogeneous liquid mass became dif-
ferentiated into various layers as it cooled and produced a hard
crust; the latter in turn was at the origin of various climates
depending on the degree to which various parts of it were
to the action of the sun. Next we can trace the process
of dlfferentiation in the history of living organisms and in the
hlstory of the human species, which is divided into differenti-
ated races. The history of human societies presents tbe same
The origiually homogeneous collectivity began to be
differentIated by the division of labor, then into rulers and
93
ruled, the spiritual and the secular authority, castes and classes.
The institutions of civilization and the instruments of human
survival evolve according to the same principle. Speech becomes
differentiated in grammatical forms a., well as into different
languages and dialects. Decorative artifacts serving ritual or
political purposes gradually become differentiated starting from
the primitive comn1on trunk into written characters, painting,
and sculpture, and each of these branches grows smaller and
more carefully differentiated sub-branches. Similarly, out of the
race's original rites and rituals there gradually develop separate
domains of poetry, music, and dance.
The ultimate cause of this indefatigable process of differen-
tiation is unknown. The most general cause we do know is this:
every action of a force produces more than one effect. The
state of homogeneity is a state of precarious balance which, in
any system, is upset by the actiou of the slightest force. Con-
seguently, every mass tends to become unbalanced, and this
occurs inevitably, because the individual parts of a system are
not uniformly exposed to the action of external forces. It is
apparent, then, that differentiation is a self-reproducing process,
every single differentiation is itself the source of the sncceeding
ones, and the increasing complexity of effects is, so to speak,
automatic. Each differentiated part serves as a nncleus for sub-
sequent differentiations, for by being different from the other
parts it is a source of specific reactions to its surroundings and
thus multiplies the variety of active forces, and, by the same
token, their effects. Therefore we may assume that the multi-
plication of effects proceeds in geometric ration to the increase
in heterogeneity. In this way we arrive at the conviction that
progress is not an accidental characteristic of the world, not a
product of human will or imagination. It is the necessary result
of transformations, and we may assume that this necessity is
beneficial to the species.
This is not to claim that with this account we have penetrated
the ultimate mystery of existcnce. Its ultimate secret is in-
94
accessible. Beyond the domain of science lies the domain of the
Unknowable. At the end of every reflection on infinity, con-
scionsness, knowledge, we come np against a bonndary that
knowledge will never cross. Every attempt to cross it by
philosophical specnlation is illnsory and pnrely verbal. Material-
ists and spiritnalists qnarrel over words, for both assnme illegiti-
mately that they nnderstand something that cannot be under-
stood. Every advance of knowledge brings us np short against
a wall beyoud which "somethiug" lies-but we do not know
what it is. Materialist and spiritualist argnments are eqnally
valid: the former grasp that what onr conscionsness experiences
can be described as mechanical motion; the latter grasp that the
actions of matter are accessible to ns only as facts of conscious-
ness, and conclude that the forces active in the external world
are of the same nature as conscionsness. But the dispnte between
the two can never be settled. We have to distinguish between
spirit and matter, but both must be understood as mauifestations
of some other absolute reality, which we can never hope to
know.
According to Spencer, this idea of a purely negative transcend-
ence or the idea of an Unknowable can be of practical assist-
ance in reconciling science with religion by setting proper
limits to the claims of each. When we ask why religious beliefs
are so universal or, more generally, inquire into the origin of
religious feelings, it occnrs to us at once that they are at all
events products of nature, and therefore mnst perform some
nseful function in human life. Positive knowledge does not
completely satisfy the mind, which invincibly aspires to some-
thing beyond cogoition and beyond the domain of any con-
ceivable experience. Conseqnently there is a place for religion
in hnman life, although this place is rigoronsly fenced off from
scientific activity. Science consists of everyday observations,
multiplied and perfected. Astronomy grows ont of snch simple
observations as that the sun rises early in the summer, late in
the winter; chemistry is based on snch observations as that iron
POSITIVISA1: TRIUMPHANT
95
rusts, fire scorches, and meat decays. Science is the systematic
classification of facts of this kind, and its usefulness is obvions.
Bnt since religions feelings and beliefs are, like science, "namral"
resnlts of evolntion, we are compelled to acknowledge that re-
ligion and science can co-exist withont conflict, and that at the
highest level of being there is something that nnites them and
subordinates them to more general tasks. Because of the very
natnre of our mind, extra-phenomenal reality or absolnte being
is forever inaccessible to us; at the same time, belief in an abso-
Inte beina is a necessary component of hnman conscionsness.
to
Scientifically accessible phenomena can be treated only as phe-
nomena, i.e., as manifestations of something else: the known
world will always appear to ns as the manifestation of a world
abont which we know nothing; incidentally, the same assnmption
is made at least tacitly by every philosophy. Matter, Motion,
Force-all are symbols of an nnknown reality. Even if science
one day realized its ideal, redncing all knowledge to one all-
embracing formnla, it wonld merely be a systematization of
experience that in itself adds nothing to the content of previ-
onsly made observations. Science rednces knowledge to sym-
bols, simplified and generalized as far as possible, bnt is in-
evitably confined to relative forms of existence and cannot go
beyond them.
Religion is simply awareness of the bonndary beyond which
cognition does not reach. Althongh it lays claim to positive
knowledge of that which cannot be known, althongh it is ex-
pressed in false dogmas and assertions, it is important to man and
irreplaceable. It saves man from being wholly swallowed np in
immediate experience. Religion properly nnderstood mnst re-
nounce apodictic prononncements abont the Unknowable, mnst
cease to talk abont a personal God and similar beliefs without
fonndation. It should recognize the limits of hnman knowledge
and the nnlmowability of the nltimate canse. Religion and sci-
ence are compatible, not becanse their contents are compatible,
for religion has no positive contents at all, and science no
dogmatic limitations; they are compatible from a functional
point of view so long as tbey do uot transgress their boundaries-
something religion continually does. Religion is not any knowl-
edge about the world, but awareness of the limits of knowledge,
a direct contact, so to speak, with the barrier behind which the
Unknowable lurks. Consciousness that this barrier exists is ex-
tremely important, for thanks to it we can get our knowledge
into perspective; the dogmas of positive religions are a clumsy
expression of this state of affairs.
Within the capacious categories of a positive knowledge so
conceived, Spencer develops his theories of human society as a
continuation and extension of cosmic evolution. Every form of
society develops in accordance with natural laws, is never a
man-made product. We also observe a real and far-reaching
analogy between the structural and functional features of so-
ciety on the one hand and the corresponding qualities of living
organisms on the other. In hath cases we observe tremendous
growth in the course of development, the progressive differen-
tiation of functions, increasing interdependence of structural
parts, and at the same time we see that the life of the whole is
independent of the survival of the individual components.
To be sure, there are differences, but they are not essential,
and often merely apparent. Thus it is true that society has no
definite outer form, bnt the same applies to the lower organisms.
The constituent parts of a society are not physically linked, but
such links are absent also in the lower species, and moreover
the "space" separating people is not empty but filled with in-
stitntions or other human creations, which are equally parts of
the social organism since human life depends on them. It might
be thought that the components of the social organism are mo-
bile in a way different from the components of biological or-
ganisms, but this only appears so: though people move about
like physical objects, as social components they no longer can
do so, and organs remain unchanged although the cells are in
constant flux. Even the observation that living organisms, unlike
POSITIVISM, TRIUMPHANT
97
social organisms, possess only a single organ of awareness is not
quite exact: the social differentiation into educated and unedu-
cated classes produces an analogon to the organic localization of
conSCIousness.
On the whole, then, the organizational principles are identical
in both cases. The division of the embryo into the endoderm,
which gives rise to the alimentary system, and the ectoderm,
from which the motor organs develop, has its social counterpart
in the historical division between rulers and ruled (the latter
being the food-producing class); and just as a third, vascular
layer develops subsequently in tbe living organism, so society
gives rise to a third intermediate class of merchants and middle-
men. It is also easy to find counterparts of further specializations
in organic tissue. Certain residual external forms (for instance,
the segmentation of the annelids) have their social counterparts
in anachronistic administrative divisions. Common to both types
of organism also is a kind of competition among the individual
parts. The influx of hlood into one organ causes loss of blood
in another; similarly, the circulation of capital brings to mind
the cixculation of the blood. Just as the ectodermal tissue,
more sensitive than the others and more contractile, produces
tissues specializing in contractility and sensitivity, so the more
flexible and more talented ruling class specializes, in a way, by
separating tbe executive from the legislative branches of govern-
ment. Parliament, so to speak the brain of the system, balances
the opposed interests of the various tissues.
Spencer calls speculations of this kind "transcendental physi-
ology" ("transcendental" stands here for physiological principles
formulated in such a way that they apply equally to all organic
nnits-the "transcending" is of the individual disciplines). Gen-
eral relationships, for instance those between an organ's func-
tions and its growth, or correlations between functional changes
and development, have universal validity. The over-all pattern
of organic development from the emhryonic stage onward (dif-
ferentiation of organs and linking up of parts that perform
TH ALIENATION OF REASON
identical functious) is repeated iu the history of societies. Both
biological and social organisms disclose three types of inte-
grating processes: merger of tissues performing similar functions
(cf. merger of Manchester with its suburbs), monopolization of
functions by a given tissue while other tissues performing similar
functions die oat (cf. monopolization of textile production by
Yorkshire at tbe expense of western England), increasing spatial
closeness between analogously functioning parts (cf. the con-
centration of certain trades in specific London districts). At the
same time, transition to higher forms is associated with in-
creasing independence of the external environment (greater
rigidity of form, loss of elasticity, progressively increasing in-
dependence of the environment in chemical composition, weight,
temperature, mobility).
Spencer believed that discovery of such strnctural and func-
tional analogies represents a real contribution, not just to
sociological but also to biological knowledge. Correct generali-
zation makes it possible to deduce some properties of organisms
from other empirically discovered laws; for instance, since the
oxidation of tissues is a condition of life, we can predict that
organisms whose surface is small in relation to their masS must
have a separate breathing organ. Similarly, Once we have estab-
lished that germs must become differentiated, we can predict
their development if we know the differences in the action of
external forces on the individual parts of the system. Of course,
this does not account for everything: after all, a duck's egg
will still hatch a duckling even when a hen sits on it. Heredity
limits the influence of external circumstances, but we are unable
to understand this phenomenon. On the other hand we observe
the phenomenon of heredity in social life, namely in the inertia
of tradition: for instance, colonies founded by various nations
on foreign territories have kept the of the mother
organism.
Spencer did not believe he owed anything to Comte. He did
99
not read the latter until late in life and found many ideas he
regarded as false, doctrinaire, and altogether fantastic. Among
these were many fundamental to Comte's system: the Law of
the Three States, the classification of the sciences, the impor-
tance of ideas in history, and, needless to say, the religion of
humanity with its authoritarian implications. Spencer also criti-
cized Comte for completely neglecting the biological-evolution-
ary approach, for his failure to take into account the change-
ability of species. He exprcssed agreement on certain points that
were not specifically Comte's but reflected "the spirit of the
age" (such as the aspiration to create a scientific sociology, the
organic interpretation of society).
In ethical matters, Spencer polemicized against Mill, and op-
posed an ethics of his own based on purely biological premises
to the latter's utilitarianism. For all that, the fundamental ideas of
utilitarianism mn through Spencer's thought. Spencer does not
try to formulate principles generalizing current moral views, but
wants merely to integrate moral phenomena within the general
laws of natme. According to him, the biological law of the
survival of the fittest is the only possible foundation for moral
life, and there is no morality other than the one that takes for
granted actually operating mles of co-existence-or rather strug-
gle-governing human life; there is no "good" outside nature,
and principles or ideals incompatible with the laws of nature are
meaningless. The stmggle for survival and its consequences-
the elimination of the unfit-are laws actually operative, and
they must be recognized as the norm in any scientific view of
the world. In the last analysis Spencer's premise is the same as
Mill's: we may regard as good only that which is a positive
good in the biological sense. This excludes as possible goods
whatever does not in practice increase pleasure and enhance
human energies: "good intentions" or "good will," as well as
actions motivated, for instance, by pity or benevolence are so
excluded. Popular versions of Spencer's view of the world can
be found in literature at the turn of the century, particularly in
Jack London's novels.
Briefly stated, the most important features of Spencer's
thought are as follows:
I. Mechanism (reduction of changes occurring in the world
and of cosmic and universal evolution to the mechanical opera-
tion of forces);
2. Belief in the oneness of the universe (not merely the
similarity of all its metamorphoses): the totality of the world
undergoes the same process, parts evolve in the same way as
wholes;
3 Naturalism (rejection of any "good" different from bi-
ological usefulness; hiological interpretation of the divisions in
society-the latter, incidentally, just a new and more detailed
version of a traditional theme);
4 An empiricist theory of knowledge, despite the presence
of transcendent horizons (science is the description of a great
number of experiences, which adds nothing to their contents);
5. Religious agnosticism.
It might be supposed that some important components of
Spencer's doctrine are incompatible with the positivist way of
thinking, in particular his assumption that the phenomena ob-
served by science are manifestations of something else, and
hence must refer to some realm of the "noumenal" beyond
observable reality. However, Spencer banishes the unobservable
world from the entire domain of cognition also from lan"uage
, - 0'
to a sphere of vague feeling. Transcendence is no more than
the sensing of the limit, and has no positive scientific .content.
Therefore Spencer clings to the main constitutive features of
positivism (abolition of the difference between essence and ap-
pearance; assertion of unity of method and of unity of the
structure of the universe; a nominalist interpretation of knowl-
~ d g e as a well-ordered record, the systematizing and symboliz-
mg of current experience). One specific feature of this variety
of positivism is the biological interpretation of the human world
POSITIVISM TRIUM.PHANT 101
and the legitimization of philosophy, which, though denied a
method of its own, has its own task-to formulate a synthesis
of the sciences.
Under the influence of Spencer and Mill there developed in
England and outside it a broad intellectnal current embracing
scientists as well as humanists, historians, and writers. It was
characterized by the belief that science is entirely neutral on
metaphysical questions and that it is possible to limit scientific
knowledge to the symbolic record of experience. Under the
influence of Spencer the history of morality and customs was
studied in the spirit of biological interpretation, and analogies
between social life and the behavior of living organisms were
pursued in greater detail. Among other examples, the theory of
races (Gobineau) may be regarded as an instance of this tend-
ency to "biologize" the social world.
A certain inconsistency became discernible, however, between
two leading positivist themes in this epoch-the one that was
summed up in empiricist slogans, and the one that aimed at the
perfect unification of all knowledge. Unity in the sources of
cognition as a premise and unity in the results of cognition as a
postUlate-these two aspirations conld not always be harmonized.
The former pursued an image of the world completely cleansed
of all "additions" to the experimental record; the latter, an
image of the world free of contingency and qualitative differ-
ences. It was hard to reconcile the two; to radical empiricists,
every kind of totalitarian-mechanistic or other-doctrine with
aspirations to a universal accounting of phenomena savored of
metaphysics. Some positivists leaned toward a naturalistic monism
that laid stress on unitary elucidation of the world and aban-
doned many earlier positivist slogans (when Haeckel embraced
Spinoza's monism, for instance, he committed himself to a
metaphysical position of the kind that was most sharply con-
demned by all positivists). Others leaned toward a subjectivism
that sought to eliminate from experience everything that did not
actually originate in experience; the contents thus reduced ofteu
turned our to be psychological in character.
Positivism dominated the "spirit of the age" to such an extent
that even Kantians sought to interpret Kant-or to amputate his
thought-in such a way as to retain only what Was compatible
with a broadly conceived positivism (Helmholtz, Lange). Kant's
transcendentalism, his theory of the a priori conditions of knowl-
edge, and the whole critique of practical reason were shelved;
all Kant spoke about, it was found, was the part empirical
psychological consciousness plays in shaping our image of the
perceived world. All that was left was a purely biological rel-
ativism, and there were even attempts to give it a physiological
foundation. The "thing in itself" was rejected as metaphysical,
and this negative attitude toward metaphysics led to psycho-
logical subjectivism.
Mill and Spencer, next to the historians and novelists they
influenced, made the most effective contribntion to a certain
positivist attitude that was widely held in many European
countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. Included
in this attitude were opposition to the conservative historicism
of the Romantics (i.e., refusal to grant value to anything merely
because it is old, enduring, firmly rooted in tradition), exclusive
recognition of "positive" values, and a tendency to rationalize
social life. This positivism was marked by a passion for reform
combined with the abandonment of irrational ideals rooted in
tradition (nationalist ideals especially fell into disrepute); it
professed the principles of social freedom, which it linked
genetically with the conditions of competitive capitalism, but
which it justified by biological theories and the principle of
laissez taire. The latter ensures victory to the strongest, stimu-
lates human energy and initiative, eliminates the weak, and
favors the survival of individuals beneficial to the species. In
terms of everyday life, the empiricist and anti-metaphysical
theory of knowledge was interpreted as the conviction that
only those human actions whose results are tangible, measurable,
103
and calculable are valuable, and that only those ideals deserve
recognition that help make life easier, satisfy essential needs,
speed up communication, and increase productivity. Contempt
for "Romantic" valnes went hand in hand with the cult of
positive science-a science whose task was not to solve meta-
physical problems nor to choose between materialism and spirit-
ualism, but to perform practical utilitarian functions. Hostility
to religion, whether in the form of outright rejection of re-
ligious values and beliefs, or in the guise of a contemptuous
agnosticism, was part of this view of the world, which may be
regarded as dominant among the educated strata of European
societies down to the 1880s, and in some countries even into
the 1890s.
CHAPTER FIVE
Positivism at the Turn of the Century
I. The place of empiriocriticism in culture. In the last quarter
of the nineteenth century positivist thought displayed snonger
psycho logistic and subjectivist tendencies. As for the range of
its interests, there was a noticeable return to questions con-
cerning scientific method and genetic epistemology, while the
desire for a general theory of progress or an all-embracing
vision of social life was distinctly on the wane. One leading
characteristic of this period was an attempt to do away with
subjectivity: the subject or "self" now comes to be regarded
as a construct without counterpart in reality, something added
to the content of experience either illegitimately or purely for
convenience.
The primary aim of this subjectivism without a subject was
to formulate the idea of "pure" experience. For this purpose it
Was necessary to track down those elements in the current sci-
entific image of the world that had heen "thought into" it-
not necessarily, nor even primarily, in order to reject them
entirely, but in order to demystify them, to grasp their origin,
and to assign them their proper place. This kind of positivism,
the most complete philosophical exposition of which is known
as Hempiriocriticism," was concerned above all with ucnetic
to
problems. It inquired into the origins and function of knowl-
edge. asked whence it arose and what biological tasks it serves.
It elaborated a psychological theory of knowledge and a
program for experimental philosophy. It derives from Burne
POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 105
and owed little to Comte-at any rate, neither Mach nor Avena-
rius, the two men who entirely independently of each other
launched this "movement," were much interested in Comte or
in their affinities with him. They had been brought up in the
German philosophical tradition, and so their point of deparolre
was very different from Comte's or Spencer's. The latter two
thinkers took for granted the results achieved by the natural
sciences in their day and envisaged a universal system without
metaphysical underpinnings. Avenarius and Mach, on the other
hand, asked fundamental questions concerning the meaning of
all scientific statements and how far they are valid. To them,
positivism Ca term, incidentally, they avoided, even rejected-
Avenarius's disciple Petzoldt was the first to adopt it) was not
so much the culminating synthesis of scientific knowledge as a
return to a "natural view of the world," which they felt had
been obscured by an uncritical acceptance of preconceived ideas
for at least a century. This desire for naturalness and this search
for an idea of experience purged of illegitimate "additions,"
relates empiriocriticism to the "modernist" ideologies of their
day, which also retreated from the ideal of rationalizing the
world and proclaimed a quest for some purely "natural" man.
The effort to discover man "as he really is," stripped of all
mystification and adornment C which pass for natural 011.1y be-
cause they are strongly rooted in habit), is expressed in so many
different ideologies that to group them together C even as "mod-
ernism") might seem a paradoxical undertaking. And yet,
though it is hard to define, there is a real affinity between,
on the one hand, Nietzschean biologism and the "philosophy
of life" or "vitalism" to which it gave rise, and modernist
literature and the variety of positivism that flourished at the
turn of the century, on the other. What they have in common
is their attempt to discover the source of all values in natural or
primitive man, uninfluenced by scientific prejudices and other
ha bits peculiar to civilization. Kant's question (though not his
answers) as to the conditions under which knowledge is valid
was revived by this philosophical movement, which, though
faithful to the essential assumptions of gave them
new meaning.
A second peculiarity of this philosophy, which also relates
it to much else in the intellectual climate of the period, was
what might be called its "activism," its abandonment of the
idea that human knowledge is the truer the more it submits to
reality and the more faithfully it mirrors the laws governing it.
Like the literary voluntarism of the period (in striking contrast
to Zola's "experimental novel"), the empiriocriticist interpreta-
tion of knowledge is in keeping with an idea of man as a being
primarily characterized by his active role in the world. "Pure
experience" was not conceived of as a kind of mirror in which
reality is reflected, but as the active life of man as natural,
spontaneons organizer of all data. For this reason, attempts
were made to invalidate the claims of science to "objective"
knowledge, and these led to destruction of the concept of "fact."
The latter demolition job was accomplished by physicists re-
lated to the empiriocritical school and the so-called conven-
tionalist school of epistemology.
2. Avenarius: the idea of a scientific philosophy. Richard
Heinrich Ludwig A venarius (1843-1896) was a professor of
philosophy, first at Leipzig and then from 1877 on at Zurich,
where he died. In 1877 he founded the Vierteljahrschrift filr
wissenschaftliche Philosophic, which he edited with Wundt and
Heinz, and which was the most important philosophical organ
of the new school. His prose makes very hard going: he sought
deliberately to rise above the terminological habits of previous
philosophy so as to eliminate the intellectual prejudices they
conceal. Because of his numerous coinages and other linguistic
complexities, be was read only by professional philosophers, for
the most part very perfunctorily. As a result, his thought was
long misunderstood and often misinterpreted.
A venarius was convinced that every science naturally aims
at satisfying the desire for unity alive in the human mind. For
7
this reason each of them aims at a synthetic view of its field, .,
a view governtM by some ultimate, supreme concept. It follows
that only monism can satisfy this need for unity. Furthermore,
every science-including logic and the theory of knowledge-
is experiential in the genetic sense, and yet each by virtue of a
kind of inertia tends to philosophy, which alone can secure the
desired unity. Thus Avenarius starts from the assnmption of a
certain epistemological monism, conceived not as an invented
ideal, but as the description of Reason's aspiration in the world.
If philosophy is a science-and Avenarius Was firmly convinced
that it can and should be a science-it plays a special, irre-
placeable part in realizing the mind's monistic aspirations. Like
other sciences it is empirical and logical, but unlike them it
deals with problems more general than those of any particular
science. Its mission is to analyze and construct the coucepts that,
in each and every science, perform a synthesizing function (i.e.,
embrace the totality of objects investigated by a given science),
and eventually also the concepts that will serve to unify the
totality of knowledge. For this reason philosophy must inquire
into the fundamental principles of all experience. In this sense
philosophy is indispensable to every science, if science is to
satisfy its implicit need for unity: it is only in philosophy,
namely, in the highest and most general concepts, that the
sciences take on their definitive form. The goal of philosophy
is to construct a nnified scientific view of the world, in which
every particular discipline will be assigned its own place.
3 Avenarius: the critique of experience. Avenarius's Cri-
tique of Pure Experience (1888-1890), from which the phil-
osophical movement under discussion derived its name, opens
with an analysis intended to separate the actually "given" from
all foreign additions. First of all, it must be noted that all human
thinking is a response of the organism to some disturbance of
its biological balance and, as such, is subject to the laws that
govern all organic processes. Avenarius refrains from inquiring
into the "nature" of the cognitive process or its "validity" in the
transcendental sense, undertaking rather an empirical investi-
gation into the part played by cognitive processes in organic
activity. That is, he treats cognition as a biological fact associated
with the central nervous system. Every cognitive act aims at
restoring the balance of the organism exposed to environmental
stimuli. Expenditure of work and absorption of cnergy by the
nervous system are processes A venarius calls "vital series." He
distinguishes between independent-purely mechanical or chem-
ical-series and dependent series, which result in cognition, i.e.,
in which restoration of balance involves a cognitive act.
In the nervous system many processes occur in which balance
is restored immediately, but when they involve a cognitive act,
we arc dealing with a dependent series and study its effects as
the function of the organism's homeostatic tendency. Certain
characteristics of cognitive contents (e.g., qualitative differenti-
ation, pleasure, pain) are correlated with movements going on
in the nervous system, but specific cognitive contents are always
subordinated functionally to the needs of the organic system
seeking to restore its balance. Philosophical doctrines such as
idealist and materialist systems, also religious representations,
can be evaluated from the same point of view: namely, we can
ask under what conditions organic balance is restored by means
of materialistic, idealistic, or theological ideas.
This is not to imply, however, that cognitive contents are
wholly dependent on the individual organism's given situation.
Needs are satisfied by way of co-operation, which reqnires a
commnnicable store of experiences independent of individual
contingencies. As science grows and develops, it gradually cre-
ates a store of experience-that iS
1
an experience in-
dependent of individual persons-although the complete "puri-
fication" of experience in this sense remains an ideal yet to be
realized.
Experience 1s not identical with the contents of sense-im-
pressions, for traces of earlier impressions always help to deter-
mille the contents of present impressions. Nor onght we to
POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
identify perception with impressions, for perception always in-
volves a selection by means of which it constitutes its object
out of those components that most readily give rise to the
cognitive act, primarily the components that recur. Thns all
perceptions involve something like intuition, and in addition
elements derived from other sense impressions (for instance, in
optical perception the third dimension originates in kinesthetic
impressions). Thus experience invariably takes on a certain
conceptual form, however rudimentary; it is a homogeneons
combination of perceptions, which for their part are organized
collections of impressions. What we call "experiment" (rather
than "experience") consists of those collections of perceptions
that are suitable for the construction of scientific concepts.
There is no way to get beyond experience. Even epistemo-
logical criticism mnst refer to it, and a valid theory of knowledge
must be based on observation of actnal cognitive processes in
their various aspects, and hence must make use of empirical
psychology and anthropological data. The concept of experience
is central to Avenarius's thought. Thanks to it we can con-
struct a monistic interpretation of the world that does away
with the "naive" (as Avenarius puts it) opposition between the
physical and the psychical, also that between the "is" and the
"ought to be." No such opposition exists in experience; only
that which "onght to be" in experience, i.e., that which is re-
garded as an ought is in fact given. This paves the way for a
scientific solution of ethical problems.
Abolishing the dualism between physical and psychical worlds
in favor of one homogeneous "experience" is one of the most
important resnlts of Avenarins's philosophy, achieved with the
help of a few anxiliary concepts, which we will briefly describe.
4- Critique of "introjection." Co-ordination between the self
and the environment. From the naive empirical viewpoint,
A venarius says, psychical phenomena were treated as qualities
or processes located in "the conceived of as a snbstantial
entity different from the body, which determines vital goals.
lID
Because of difficulties iuvolved in this naive theory, it was
superseded by the naive-critical one that attempted to study
"psychical phenomena" without reference to a "soul" and
treated consciousness as "internal" in opposition to the Hexternal"
body. The former attempt is a purely verbal expedient; as for the
latter, It IS based on a widespread fallacy, which Avenarius calls
"introjection." To have exposed this fallacy, he considered was
one especially important result of his critique. '
According to Avenarius, we imagine falsely-and the error is
not one of original experience, but the result of acquired
preJudIces-that we can, in experience itself, distinguish the
thing from our mental image of it. Thus we divide the world
into things '(outside ourselves" and images "inside ourselves,"
and construct two. realities, which are given philosophic
III systems. Now, this introjection (locating
the. Images. of thlllgs III an alleged psychical "inside") is at
vanance wIth the natural view of the universe, which should
tbe starting point for any scientific view of it. To be sure,
the natural view we divide experience into One portion that
"our own" (our bodies., thoughts, feelings) and another por-
tion of the bodIes around us. But this does not justify
the assumptIOn of two dIfferent snbstances, still less two realities
outer and one inner, nor of parallel series in two intrinsicall;
dIfferent worlds. Both things and ideas come into being as the
of interaction between the central nervous system and the
envIronment. Between myself and my environment there is a
c.onstant. necessary relationship, which Avenarius terms "essen-
tial emplriocriticaJ Both terms of the relationship,
however, fall wlthm the same experienced reality. Avenarius
terms "self" the "central part" of this relationsilip, and the
its "counterpart." In the cognitive act we always
dlStmgmsh these two components. Each concrete "self" is cor-
related with a defi?ite and vice verSa. I experience
other peop Ie as belllgs like myself, that is, I associate with their
behavior a certain meaning that is not purely mechanical, I
POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY I I I
treat them as "central parts" in the essential coordination. Their
counterpart and "my own" may be identical, or we may be
"counterparts" to each other.
It is at this point that the vicious principle of introjection
comes in, a principle l'lpheld by psychologists, but at complete
variance with the natural view of the world. For introjection
induces us to interpret the not-purely-mechanical behavior of
other people as a collection of "impressions found in ourselves,"
i.e., localized in the brain. Whereas, what we ought to assume
is that when another persoll tells us of his impressions (e.g.,
when he says, "I see a stone") his words mean the same thing
as my own when I state my experience. That is, I onght to
assume that the same correlation occurs between the other man
and the stone as between me and the stone. The trouble with
the principle of introjection is that it transforms the "stone as
seen" into a collection of impressions localized in the brain, and
so conceived of as "impressions in myself." Thns introjection
puts the object inside me as a thing seen, makes of it something
"within myself," or the manifestation of something "outside"
me. This is to reduce the environmental component to a mental
component. Obviously, then, introjection goes beyond anything
experience entitles us to conclude from it: namely, it interprets
the meaning of another man's behavior as somehow different
from my own behavior, it makes ns suppose that envirollmental
components are images "inside" us, and hence that another man
does not see the stone as I see it, but as an image "inside" him.
Such an "inner existence," such a division of the single
homogeneous world into inner and outer, subject and object-
all this is a purely man-made prodnct of introjection and has no
fonndation in experience. By the Same token, every dualism or
psychophysical parallelism is disclosed as a similarly smnggled-in
prejudice. There is no "inside" and there is no need to inter-
nalize perception: we c}':perience things, not "inner images." In
experience there is no opposition between "inn ern and "outer"-
the sense of the division is purely methodological. Experience
II2 THE ALIENATION OF REASON
is metaphysically neutral; it always includes an individual, but
"self" and "stone" are components of experience in an identical
sense, and the . difference between them consists in this, that
"self)) contains certain additional components, for instance, feel-
ings of pleasure or pain. Some parts of experience permit us to
characterize objects with the help of specific qualities: these
are elements (such as sounds, colors, etc.) that are of interest
to natural science, and to psychology also to the extent of their
dependence upon the individual and his central nervous system.
But psychology is wrong to conceive of a "psychic" element
opposed to "what lies on the other side." Unless deformed by
psychological prejudice, experience does not differentiate be-
tween matter and spirit, the thing and its "inner" copy, the
traces it leaves.
It would, however, be erroneous to assume-according to
Avenarins-that doing away with the introjective faUacy does
away with the distinction between self-cognitive and non-
cognitive components of the environment. For when I say that
I know this or that, I am saying that my "self" is a collection
of things and thoughts, and that this collection has been in-
creased by the action of a stimulus, whereas the non-cognitive
component is not increased in the same situation, cannot (that is)
be regarded as a "central part" of the essential co-ordination in
which this stimnlus is the counterpart. But the statement that
the "self" differs from the inanimate components of the en-
vironment "by the cognition within it" is meaningless, for we
do not know of any "non-cognition" in these inanimate com-
ponents, and the "self" is nothing more or less than one com-
ponent of experience. The psychical is not a substance localized
in the brain, neither a function nor a state of the brain: it is a
mode of describing experience.
The question arises, How can we conceive of an environment
w i t ~ o u t a "central part"? For instance, what meaning can be
ascnbed t ~ events that .are not directly observable? According
to A venanus,natural sCience does not ask questions concerning
POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY I I 3
the environment "in itself," but describes an environment as-
suming an observer acting as a "central pa.rt." It treats an actnal
environment as the "counterpart" to a non-observable (theo-
retical) situation. In other words, A venarius denies that the idea
of essential co-ordination reduces or changes the actnal meaning
of scientific descriptions referring to unobservable situations.
Thus, the ultimate aim of Avenarius's critique of introjection
is to do away with the dualism of subject and object by re-
ducing both to experience, assumed a.s the primordial category.
Whether the subject is reduced to a certain kind of thing or
thing to subject, the result is the same: the breaking up of
subjectivity and identification of the "self" with the other forms
of experience. Thus it may be said that Avenarius's "subjec-
tivism" (if this tenn is not too unfair) does not reconstruct
reality by referring it to the subject, but destroys the reality
of the subject itself-which, incidentally, is in keeping with the
positivist tradition. Adversaries of empiriocriticistn pointed out
that by taking "experience" as his basic, metaphysically and
epistemologically neutral category, Avenarius did not eliminate
dualism: rather, he unwittingly interpreted it now in a realistic,
and now in a psychological sense. But Avenarius himself held
that every interpretation of this kind is metaphysical and has
no place in science. He assumed that our natural, prescientific
view of experience is sufficiently clear, and that we do not
spontaneously regard it as a product of the self nor as an "inner
reflection" of transcendent beings. Avenarius's fundamental in-
tention is transparent: he wants to do away, not just with
metaphysical, but also with epistemological questions. His
critique of experience is purely destrnctive, and the philosophy
he advocates is neither a theory of knowledge nor a theory of
being, but is confined to analyzing the actual results of science
and subsuming them under the most general categories. The
purpose of his "purifying" undertaking is to eliminate meta-
physical prejudices and to blaze the trail for a pragmatic-
minded science.
Apart from a certain vagueness surrounding Avenarius's con-
cept of experience, his whole project is grounded in an even
more general concept. This is the so-called "principle of econ-
omy," which among other things serves to justify the attempt
to reconstruct the world of experience and to purge it of
"introjective" notions.
5. The principle of economy. What figures under this name
in textbooks on the history of philosophy can be reduced to a
few logically independent statements in which it is possible to
discern a common intention. One early, well-known version of
the principle of economy is "Ockham's razor": "Entities are not
to be multiplied unnecessarily." This comes down to the empiri-
cist principle: we are entitled to assert the existence only of
those things and properties that experience compels us to rec-
ognize, and we must renounce all others. This version is not an
ontological statement, but a methodological rule.
There are several fonnulations as well of ontological or
descriptive versions of this principle. There is a theological
version, formulated by Malebranche and others, according to
which God in administering the world always uses the simplest
means to His ends: that is, He does not waste natural resources
when the same result can be obtained at less cost. The same
principle was formulated by Maupertnis in purely physicist
terms: every effect in natnre is achieved with the least possible
expense of the energy required to pass from a given initial state to
another state. A somewhat narrower formulation (however, it is
not necessary that the principle be stated in its full generality)
is the biological version stated by Spencer, among others. Ac-
cording to this, the acts of living organisms are executed with
minimal loss of energy, and since the hnman brain serves the
system's self-preserving functions, thinking is snbject to the
Same law. In this form, the principle of economy can be applied
to intellectual behavior, and provides the biological foundation
for epistemological inferences-assuming that such inferences
can be based on observation of nature.
POSITIVISM AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY lIS
As understood by Avenarius, Mach, and related writers, the
principle of economy is not a physical law with an ontological
meaning, but a description of the behavior of the central nervous
system, which accounts for the actual course of scientific think-
ing, the history of human knowledge in general, the history of
science in particular. The gradual accumulation of knowledge 3
can be described in terms of the mind's tendency to economize.
Scientific concepts, laws, hypotheses, theories-all are a kind
of shorthand that economizes intellectual labor, thanks to which
acquired experience can be remembered and handed down. The
only task of science is to relieve people of the need to experi-
ment continuously, by malting accessible to them the expe-
riences of others. No general scientific statements reproduce par-
ticnlar facts in their entirety; they cover only some of their
characteristics-the ones important to man for biological reasons.
They economize effort; they make it possible to take in at a
glance a multitude of particular events, viewing them from a
vitally important angle. Science is experience economically or-
dered, and its real content does not go beyond experience.
Concepts such as those of "substance," "thing," etc. are similarly
products of the mind's tendency to economize: in the totality
of experience we distinguish certain qualities as more permanent
than others and synthesize these as some one "thing," gradually
separating it out from the original qualities so that in time it
becomes an unchanging "substratum." Language arrests this
cognitive process, and so unproductive metaphysical ideas arise.
In actual fact the concept "thing" is useful, since it fixes in
abridged form certain recurrent characteristics manifested in
series of successive experiences; there is no reason to renounce
traditional modes of speech, yet we have to free words of the
metaphysical meanings ascribed to them, which are not justified
by any real need of the cognitive organism. The same is true of
the concept of "force," which is used to denote characteristics
of varions physical reactions. The concept is useful as a short-
hand notation of a certain quality recurrent in many experiences,
lI6 THE ALIENATION OF REASON
but we must guard against associating it with any metaphysical
idea.
Proper understanding of the principle of economy will enable
us to turn our backs on many metapbysical problems, and the
totality of human cognition-its processes and its contents-will
be accounted for as genetically and functionally related to
biological needs that are satisfied with the help of our brains.
Biologically speaking, the central nervous system operates pur-
posefully. Two factors cooperate in the production of ideas:
apperceptive masses (the expression is Herbart's), i.e., ready-to-
hand, fixed residues of old apperceptions, which perform as-
similatory functions, and elements newly apperceived. The
former have an active character: from among the experienced
contents they pick out known components and needed com-
ponents (and hence they operate in accordance with the princi-
ple of economy). From among the passive contents of ex-
perience, the apperceptive masses appropriate new, unknown
elements by associating them with the known ones. The apper-
ceived components are less well defined than the Contents of the
apperceptive masses, and the cognitive process consists in this,
that the brain endows the appropriated contents with definition,
choosing from among them with the help of familiar ideas. The
neural mechanism nnderlying the activity of the apperceptive
masses accounts for the presence of permanent rigid notions in
our image of the world. It also casts light on the functions of
language: language is composed of signs intended to economize
the assimilatory effort. Every intellectual operation presupposes
the presence of a mass of ready-made concepts under which we
continually subsume experienced contents with the help of the
simplest, most general available ideas. In reference to this
mechanism, the principle of economy can be formulated as
follows: when new elements make their appearance in expe-
rience, the change that consciousness undergoes in the process of
assimilating them is the least possible in the given sitnation.
When we consider the history of science from this viewpoint,
we observe that science gradually eliminates those components
that are not present in pure experience and that are superfluous
for the effective assimilation of data. Among such dispensable
components are values, anthropomorphic notions, the metaphysi-
cal concepts of substance and cause, "universalsj " etc.
As can readily be seen, the principle of economy tells us
nothing about the truth of science in the common sense of the
term, merely describes the biological law governing the assimi-
lation of cognitive contents. Although it stresses the objectivity
of notions, this objectivity consists in their applicability to in-
dividual elements of experience, and thus has a purely opera-
tional, not a metaphysical sense. The principle of economy is the
only possible criterion for determining the validity of concepts.
The empirical version of this principle aroused much criticism,
of the kind that has always greeted relativistic or skeptical
doctrines. TIns principle, it was said, involves the paralogism of
"the liar" (it must be applied to itself, since it covers the
totality of human thinking; consequently it cannot" be repre-
sented as true in the traditional sense, but at best as the result
of the very mechanism it describes). It was also objected to on
the ground that it renders impossible the distinction between
facts and theories (or scientific fictions), for within experience
snch fictions are just as "given" and real as other facts, and the
facts themselves have been picked out hy the apperceptive
masses. Consequently, it is impossible on the hasis of the princi-
ple of economy to distinguish between authentic and fictitious
elements of experience. After A venarius, Poincare, Duhem, Le
Roy, and others analyzed the concept of fact in greater detail.
Empiriocriticism, and especially the principle of economy,
Was supposed to avoid the difficulties involved in Kant's critical
problem. But its adversaries objected that the undertaking was
futile. In the empiriocritical image of the world, the principle of
economy and the concept of pure experience presuppose one
another; the principle can he formulated only once we have
determined the concept of pure experience as a constant system
IIS THE ALIENATION OF REASON
of reference (in order to know what cognitive elements are to
be eliminated as incompatible with the economy of thought, we
must have a model for the reduction of the "given"). On the
other hand, we arrive at the concept of pure experience by
making use of the same principle of economy. Thus, in the
last analysis, we get a new version of the same circular reasoning
that is the starting point of Kant's critical problem: the standards
by which knowledge is evaluated are justified by a model of
cognition in the construction of which the same standards are
used. According to Husserl, who criticized the principle of
economy in his Logische Untersuchungen, no theory of knowl-
edge that makes use of the results of experimental science can
withstand criticism, for it is impossible to inquire into the valid-
ity or non-validity of knowledge if we presuppose the validity
of specific results achieved witb the help of the very criteria that
are in question.
6. Ernst Mach. In his writings, Ernst Mach (1838-1916) for-
mulated many ideas similar to those of Avenarius, but inde-
pendently of him. Unlike the latter, he was a practicing scientist,
an experimental and theoretical physicist. He taught mathemat-
ics and physics at Vienna, Graz, and Prague, and in the last
years of his academic career lectured on philosophy at Vienna-
more accurately, on the history and theory of the inductive
sciences. Pondering the need for over-all views in connection
",;th new branches of physics arising in his day, he was led to
historical study in the hope that learning how the basic concepts
of physics were arrived at would cast light on their true mean-
ing and supply clues to the direction further work should take.
For this reason, he devoted a great deal of attention to the history
of physics.
It is perhaps because of his historical interests that Mach,
though related in many respects to Avenarius, had a much
stronger sense of the relativism of knowledge than the latter.
Avenarins, it wonld seem, was firmly convinced that as science
progressed experience was continuously "purified," and that
119
it was possible to come ever closer to the ideal of an all-
embracing synthesis within a radically purified experience. He
was far more than Mach and far more inclined
to traditional philosophizing, although he interpreted the mean-
ing of science in purely biological terms. Mach, on the other
hand, was deeply convinced of the provisional character of every
given stage of science and of all scientific assertions. An im-
pOltant part in his philosophical reflection was played by his
radical anti-dogmatism, his conviction of the harm caused to
science and to life in general by stubborn .adherence to in-
herited formulas. He did not believe that any sort of opinion is
above criticism, and thought that physics itself stood especially
in need of a thorough housecleaning.
In his early youth Mach had read Kant's Prolegomena and
it made a great impression on him, stimulating him to reflect
critically on current metaphysical prejudices. In his mature
writings, however, he completely rejected the fundamental ideas
of Kantianism. He reached the conclusion that "the thing in
itself" is a completely superfluous hypothesis, and that there is
no foundation for believing in any a priori conditions of ex-
perience whatever; he found assertion of the existence of syn-
thetic a priori judgments especially absurd. According to him,
the history of science shows incontrovertibly that there is no
clear-cut boundary between prescientific everyday experience
set down in ordinary language, and the theoretical constructions
of modern science. Science is a continuation of the same short-
hand, symbolic systemarizing of experience that people have
pursued spontaneously tlu'oughout history. Cognition is a spe-
cific part of human practical activity, an organic response or a
process of adaptation to the environment, and there is no reason
to ascribe transcendental meaning to it. Thus, like Avenarius,
Mach sought to do away with metaphysical notions by construct-
ing a leading epistemological category (experience) of a kind
that does not inquire into the "existential" status of experienced
120
reality. He is also related to A venarius by his biological and
methodological conception of the principle of economy.
If we reflect-having discarded all metaphysical assumptions
-on the real content of what is given in cognition, we find,
according to Mach, certain complexes of qualities that may
be called "elements." The question whether these elements are
"in themselves" physical or psychical is meaningless. Physicality
or psychicality is not a characteristic of any component of
experience, but a specific mode of the cognitive organization.
Neutral "in themselves," these elements (color, sound, space,
time-in short, all the traditional primary and secondary quali-
ties) are called "things" to the extent that we link them together
in more or less permanent combinations and study the laws of
their simultaneons occurrence, as natural science does. The
same elements are called "impressions" to the extent that we
refer them to the body that perceives them. Either interpreta-
tion is secondary in relation to the presence of the elements in
experience, and the rule governing interpretation is precisely
the principle of economy, this nnconsciously purposive regula-
tor of the organism's self-preserving activities.
Scientific laws and theories do not add anything to cxperience
not contained in it in the first place; their role consists in
selection and symbolization; they do not have to reproduce an
absolute world, but to select from it the biologically important
components and order them, so as to enable us to predict them
and to forestall their dangerous effects or to exploit their
biologically useful qualities. Indispensable in this ordering activ-
ity is the discovery and recording of certain recurrent com-
binations of elements we call "things." When we mentally
separate a relatively permanent body from its changing en-
vironment, we are merely trying to fix in our memories the
differences the various elements display on the score of their
variability or invariability-a characteristic of the utmost practi-
cal importance. One incidental effect of this activity is the
illusion that once we have subtracted all the qualities there
remains some indefinite substratum or "thing in itself." In
reality, from a purely empirical viewpoint, bodies are mental
symbols that stand for more or less permanent combinations of
elements. This also applies to such phenomena as space, time,
and causality. Apart from observations concerning the perma-
nence of certain connections, the metaphysical concept of canse
is of no use to us. Time is an independent variable which by its
values characterizes certain relations between phenomena and,
no more than causality, requires that we ascribe to it any
ontological reality. Similarly, Mach thought-this inspired a
violent attack by Planck-that atoms and other particles have
only symbolic reality. He treated the concept of individuality or
self in the same way: individuality is a symbol around which we
group certain specific qualities, and to this extent it is iu-
strumentaUy useful.
There is no such thing as a knowledge telling us something
ahout the world that does not originate in experience and have
an experiential content. Mach regarded it especially important
that we should grasp this. Geometry, insofar as it applies to
experience, is an experimental science in the same sense as
mechanics: it describes spatial relations between things in a
shortened, hence idealized form. Non-experimental mathemati-
cal propositions have a tautological character-they are not
synthetic a priori judgments-and they do not refer to things,
but formulate rules of reasoning. All our statements about the
world, both records of individual observations and so-called
principles, laws, theories-all are subject to the control of ex-
perience, and tbanks to the possibility of such control, perform
the vital functions assigned them by the human species. Science
is a specifically human mode of biological behavior, a means of
effective communication that is not provided by experience
alone, although the real content of knowledge never goes be-
yond experience.
Mach acknowledges having been influeuced by Darwin's
work, which was published just as he was ending his uuiversity
studies. It persuaded him to view the evolution of science as a
particular case in the over-all biological process of adaptation.
"Expressed in the most concise terms, the task of scientific
cognition consists in adapting thoughts to facts and thoughts to
one another. Every beneficial biological process furthers self-
preservation, and hence is a process of adaptation. . . . For the
physical, biological behavior of living beings is co-determined,
and supplemented, by the inner process of cognition: thinking."
This interpretation also gets rid of the distinction between
scientific "description" and scientific ((explanation.)) Once we
have described a given system as exhaustively and economically
as possible, there is nothing left to be "explained." Moreover,
according to Mach, the distinction is itself harmful and results
in waste of scientific energies, for it leads to constructing
unnecessary hypotheses devoid of empirical meaning, and en-
conrages the ridiculous pretension that a universally and eter-
nally valid science can be created.
Thus, apart from a short period when he subscribed to
Kant's point of view and sympathized with Berkeley, as he tells
us himself, Mach arrived at "a natural view of tbe world, without
speculative metaphysical ingredients. The dislike of metaphysics
implanted in me by Kant, and the analyses carried out by
Herbart and Fechner led me to a point of view close to Hume's."
According to Mach, this natural view of the world contains
no difficulties and entails no paradoxical conseqnences. It per-
mits and even necessitates recognizing a world of experience
common to all men, and thus a physical experience distinct
from the psychical world accessible only to each human in-
dividual separately. Nor is there any reason not to recognize
the existence of other minds; we are forced to do so by
irrefutable analogies between other individuals' behavior and
our own. "The material world rests upon established counections
between elements, and relations between humau impressions
are only a particnlar instance of such connections."
This view fully satisfies the reqnirements of its own leading
3
rule, namely, the principle of economy. Once the metaphysical
and epistemological questions that vitiate not only "pure philoso-
phy" but also physics have been weeded out, mankind's in-
tellectual energies will be concentrated on their real ueeds,
which it is science's task to satisfy.
Science is not a collection of individual facts, gathered and
added to in view of making "generalizations." Science normally
progresses through the discovery of facts that of themselves
disclose the law governing them through direct experiment.
One case of this is the way color varies with the angle of
refraction of light. Elementary activities of the same type as are
fonnd in science make their appearance at an animal level:
animals' conditioned reflexes are rudimentary concepts, the latter
term beiug tal{en in an operational, uot a philosophic sense.
Science operates with a similar store of "preconceptions," i.e.,
ready-made relationships that have been discovered experimen-
tally and recorded in the conceptual system. The operational
values of the individual components of this system are subject to
constant revision in order to determine to what extent our
expectations based on this system are or are not fulfilled. In this
respect, there is no difference between ordinary experience
accessible to any being endowed with a nervous system and
scientifically organized experiment. There is no break in con-
tinuity between science and spoutaueous everyday experience,
nor even between science and modes of behavior characteristic
of the entire animal world. Progress here consists primarily in
greater differentiating ability and greater richness in the qualities
observed in the world, some of which are useful, others harmfnl.
Any assumption that the human conceptual system coutains
something more than the sense experiences from which it derives
is completely unfounded: it is merely more effectively organized.
Human speech is the earliest basic mode of organizing experi-
ence, for it enables us to hand down individual achievements
to posterity and fix them in the collective memory. Science is a
continuation of the process that prodnced language, by means
of which the human species, in contradistinction to the lower
species, accumulates and preserves empirically acquired knowl-
edge.
Like most positivists, Mach did not look upon himself as either
a philosopher or a positivist. If, in addition to his experimental
research in physics and the physiology of the senses (his re-
searches are regarded as especially valuable in the fields of
optics, acoustics, wave theory, and the theory of auditory and
kinesthetic impressions), he concemed himself with
questions, this was because he hoped to discover the biological
sense of scientific pursuits and to rid himself of "metaphysical
ghosts." At a time when official German philosophy was almost
exclusively dominated by different versions of Kantianism,
Mach expected his doctrine to perform primarily destructive
tasks.
This is why, although according to Mach meaningful state-
ments cau be made only within the limits set by scient}fic
experience, theory also performs (and was intended by him to
perform) the functions of a philosophical view of the world. In
a treatise devoted to Mach's doctrine, Richard von Mises says
that it marked the second stage in "emancipation as well as
humanization" (Hume marked the first), for it purely
practical meaning to human knowledge, did away with the
alleged authority of a transcendental world of truth, and made
man the actual creator of the intellectual system that apprehends
his natural environment. It was a doctrine that ruthlessly weeded
out all mythical and religious representations from the world
picture. It also shook up a certain "melancholy of dishelief"
popular at the time, thanks to the writings of Du Bois-Reymond,
among others. According to them the "essence" of space, time,
conscionsness, causality, also the connection between sensory
impressions and states of matter, will be forever inaccessible to
man. In Mach's view, this ignorabimus derives solely from
falsely formulated questions; once the primacy of experience
has been recognized, it will be clear that concepts such as
POSITIVISM AT TIlE TURN OF THE CENTURY 12
5
material particles, the "self," and causality have purely ex-
perimental meaning, and that there is no reason to look for some
deeper reality underlying our conceptual constructs.
Mach and his adherents deny that the reduction of human
personality or "self" to a symbolic abstraction created solei
y
for practical purposes entails dangerous moral consequences
("There is no saving the 'I,'" Mach wrote) by ignoring the
ethical value of individual life. On the contrary, they argued,
this doctrine prevents liS from oVereStl111ating our own "self"
and despising others, furthers a conception of mankiud as one
co-operating, interdependent whole, ends the idle diversion of
human energies from the struggle for self -preservation, and
does away with intellectual fetishism.
7 Arguments against empmocrltzcmn. Mach's theories
aroused a great deal of criticism from different quarters. Apart
from the antinomy implied when the principle of economy is
regarded as the main rule of cognition-the antinomy already
referred to-critics often pointed out that Mach's assumption of
primary "elements" is no less arhitrary than the contrary as-
snmption. Mach's seemingly primary components may be re-
garded as results of analysis, just as well as records of spontane-
ous everyday perceptions that require no further assumptions.
Husserl attached particular importance to the skeptical conse-
quences of empiriocriticism: renunciation of "truth" in the
sense this term has had throughout the history of European
culture, reduction of knowledge to a specific type of biological
reaction. These consequences, which Husserl regarded as disas-
trous because they were destructive of all the values upon
which this culture is hased (the presence in cognitive contents
of a "truth" independent of man, the absoluteness of the funda-
mental rules of moral evaluation), are arrived at by unsound
reasoning. For empiriocriticists analyze the cognitive process
with the help of experimental psychology and empirical studies
of history, and then ascribe "objective" meaning to their results
in order to prove that no knowledge can pretend to any
126
objective meaning so understood. The empiriocriticists' assump-
tion that they make no philosophical presuppositions is there-
fore erroneous, and a theory of knowledge hased on uncritical
acceptance of the results of empirical knowledge cannot avoid
the vicious circle. Only a provisional renunciation of the resnlts
of empiricism and of the findings of particular fields of knowl-
edge will enable us to discover the ultimate sources from which
derive science's claims to "truth." Empirical methods alone can
never lead to a theory of knowledge.
Another disquieting consequence of empiriocriticism was its
denial of real being to personality. Empiriocritical subjectivism
broke up the subject into elements of just the same kind as
things are constructed ant of, while at the same time it dis-
carded the question of how the "external" qnalities of things are
correlated with the contents of perception. This was one of the
reasons why Bergson opposed this kind of positivism.
To be sure, the radical monism toward which empiriocriticist
thought tended did not consist in reducing the world to a part
of the psychological subject; rather, the subject was what it
did away with. However, the doctrine owed its coherence to a
peculiar way of homogenizing the world, based on a conception
of experience that involved considerably greater difficulties than
idealism. The assumption of absolutely primary elements of
experience, neutral in relation to the dichotomy between "psy-
chicality" and "physicality" seemed to many critics arbitrary
and nnprovable, and not a bit less obscure for being referred to
as "primary." Many critics thought that the dichotomy "tran-
scendent/immanent" could not be avoided, and hence interpreted
Mach and Avenarius as partisans of immanence-an interpreta-
tion Avenarius strongly protested. At bottom the empirio-
criticists wanted to do away with the traditional epistemological
problem, whiCh, in their view, was falsely formulated, and to go
back to the cognitive situation they regarded as "natural." How-
ever, in order to achieve their aim, they resorted to arguments
that presupposed a far from self-evident category of experience.
7
According to their critics, an "experience" reduced to atom-like
constituent parts is even more abstract a construction than
"bodies," "space," and "causes" were to Mach. As is customary
with attempts to discover the ultimate, indivisible, "given"
elements of knowledge, the final result was unconvincing, since
its methods involved the use of non-definitive or unanalyzed data
of experience.
In connection with the question whether empiriocriticism
should be interpreted in psychological or immanentist terms,
we must take cognizance of the criticisms Lenin voiced in his
Materialism and Empiriocriticism, published in 1909. This book
is a violent attack on the Russian adherents of this philosophy
and their Western sources. Especially after the failure of the
1905 revolution, empiriocriticism enjoyed considerable popular-
ity among the Leftist intelligentsia in Russia, particularly among
the Social Democrats. A number of members of the party's
Bolshevik wing were drawn to the doctrine, the most prominent
of these being A. A. Bogdanov. According to its Russian ad-
herents, empiriocriticism was perfectly consistent with the
revolutionary spirit of Social Democracy and its political radi-
calism, for it stripped our view of the world of mythical ideas,
prescientific and pseudoscieutific notions, and so paved the way
for a strictly scientific view of the world, purged of the idle
verbalism of old metaphysical systems. Moreover, as we may
judge from Valentinov's memoirs (he was an active member of
the Russian empiriocriticist movement), the very subjectivism
of this philosophy attracted the revolutionaries, who imagined it
to be a sort of philosophical counterpart to their political
doctrine of social upheaval planned and brought about by the
party. Plekhanov's writings at the time stressed the fact that a
revolution cannot be successful unless the economic and histor-
ical conditions are ripe for it (the proletariat cannot seize power
before capitalism has reached a certain stage of development).
Together with Trotsky, he accused Lenin of "Blanquism,"
belief in an arbitrary, "conspiratorial" attempt to speed up
128
social development. At the time, he saw a connection between
the Bolsheviks' political position and the popularity of this
philosophy among them. The Russian followers of Mach were
unaware of any incompatibility between their own position and
Marxism; they pointed to the Theses on Feuerbach, which they
interpreted in a subjectivist spirit.
Lenin, however, launched a sharp attack 011 ernpiriocriticlsm,
citing the philosophy expounded in such writings of Engels as
were then known. His work is a defense of the materialist
position, and in it he regarded empiriocriticism as a subterfuge
in which lurks a content identical with Berkeleyan idealism.
According to him, a philosophy that assumes experience to be
neutral in relation to the dichotomy between physicality and
psychicality is nntenable; Mach, Avenarius, and related thinkers
merely reduce the experienced world to the snbject's psychical
contents or treat it as a necessary correlate to consciousness.
This position implies that all reality is a subjective creation,
and hence cannot avoid falling into solipsism; among other
things, it must renounce the concept of truth in the sense of
conformity between cognitive contents and a physical world
independent of them. Lenin opposed to this doctrine a ma-
terialist and realist doctrine that he called "the theory of reflec-
tion." According to this theory, what is given in experience is a
world of bodies independent of our perception of them, which is
copied by the mind in the cognitive process. Our impressions
are photographs of physical objects, so to speak, which them-
selves constimte the only existing reality. Consequently "truth"
denotes exact conformity of cognitive contents with a world
independent of man, and this applies equally to propositions,
impressions, and concepts-the latter, too, are "reflections" of
the real world. The process of cognition is never completed,
and hence the trnth of our knowledge is always relative. But
this relativity of truth does not imply that a statement is
true only in reference to a given stage of knowledge, to a
given historical formation, let alone to a given human in-
9
dividual. It means only that scientific statements are never so
exact as to rule out the possibility of being rectified. Moreover,
experimental control is never absolutely perfect, and hence
there is no such thing as a judgment that has been verified
once and for all. According to Lenin, the results of science
provide us with irrefutable arguments against Mach's idealist
view of these matters. The fact that man is a product of namre
and makes his appearance at a given stage of biological evolu-
tion is sufficient evidence that at one time there was a reality
without man; whereas the idealists maintain that the physical
world is a creation of the thinking self, and are thus barred
from accepting reliable scientific information. Furthermore,
there can be no doubt that thinking is a function of the brain,
i.e., of a material ohject, and this is again something an empirio-
criticist cannot admit, since he treats physical objects as prodncts
of thinking.
Lenin agrees that there is no difference between the phenom-
enon and the Kantian thing-in-itself, but according to him this
does not imply that the phenomenal world understood as a
complex of impressions is the only accessible one; it implies
only that there is nothing absolutely unknowable. There is a
difference between something that is known and something yet
nnknown; nor can it be doubted that some of reality remains
to be known. Our cognitions do not form a wall behind which
we can only guess at the presence of things, but are reflections
of real things in human heads. All these assertions can be
justified by appeal to the criterion of practice, which is the
most effective means for testing the truth or falsity of our
ideas. Whenever an action carried out on the basis of given
information mrns out to be successful, the information is suf-
ficiently confirmed; failure points to an error in our informa-
tion. The last-mentioned criterion is particularly important in
social practice: whether an analysis of a given social situation is
correct is tested by the effectiveness of political action carried
out on the basis of it. What is meant here is not that the nseful-
130
ness of a given belief makes it true, but that a judgment that
reflects a factual state of affairs can be verified by practical
actions affectiug this state of affairs, namely, by ascertaining
whetber these actions had the results expected.
Lenin also uncompromisingly criticized his adversaries for
accepting empiriocritical interpretations of the most important
philosophic categories. Among other things, he defended the
concept of cansality on the grounds that it describes actual
necessary connections between events, and that it cannot be
reduced to a purely empirical functional relation. He also de-
fended Engels' view of the cognitive functions of time and
space: though they do exist independently of bodies, they are
not subjective creations or a priori forms, as Kant maintained,
but resnlts of empirical operations that organize phenomena
into certain types of relationship; they are objective properties
of material bodies.
At the same time, Lenin argued that the idealistic position
of his adversaries entails acceptance of religious belief, and
that the real intention of all idealists is the defense of religion,
as shown by Berkeley's example. Tbis was one of the reasons
why Lenin strongly emphasized a rule he called "the party
principle in pbilosophy." It denotes, first, that in pbilosophy it is
impossible to avoid choosing between idealism and materialism,
and that anyone who thinks philosopbically must opt for one or
the other of these two positions. Every attempt to rise above this
fundamental conflict or to avoid it is but an underhanded
defense of idealism. Second, it denotes that pbilosophical doc-
trines are always tools used by political parties or institutions,
and that, regardless of expressed intentions, a philosophical
commitment is always a political commitment as well. Since
idealism is always invoked to uphold religious belief, it is
inevitably in the service of the exploiting classes, while ma-
terialism, at least in our time, is the pbilosophy of the militant
proletariat. As against certain Russian empiriocriticists, Lenin
denied that a political position aiming primarily at efficient
13 1
organization of party energies in preparation for the revolution
(rather than waiting for economic conditions to be "right") is
necessarily associated with a subjectivist philosophy.
Lenin's book played an important part in the subsequent his-
tory of Marxism, particularly after Stalin summed up its main
ideas in a popular article titled "On Dialectical and Historical
Materialism," which for several years was obligatory reading in
all Soviet schools.
When we look back over the leading empiriocritical idcas,
we are especially struck by the following features: (I) the
pbilosophical destruction of the subject; (2) the biological and
practical conception of cognitive functions, reduction of in-
tellectual behavior to purely organic needs, and renunciation of
"truth" in the transcendental sense; (3) desire to get back to the
most primitive concrete datum, to a "natural" view of the world
not mediated by metaphysical fictions. The last-mentioned point
is characteristic of various tendencies that manifested them-
selves in European philosophy at the turn of the century. We
find this same desire in Husser!, also in Bergson, although the
latter's way of structuring and articulating it is very different
from the former's. According to Husser!, what somehow cuts
off human consciousness from direct contact with things is
nothing else but pragmatic, technologically oriented knowledge,
that is, a knowledge organized for utilitarian purposes rather
than for understanding the world, grasping the correspondence
between our classifications and the essence of things. Similarly,
according to Bergson, practical intelligence active in everyday
life and in empirical science re-creates the world according to
the practical needs of the species and so, by its very nature,
cannot go beyond tbis attitude; it employs ready-made instru-
ments to break up the world into artificial but convenient ab-
stract fictions, taking only a selection of phenomena into ac-
count and ignoring the rest, and thus inevitably fails to grasp
change and living time (fa duree). In order to rediscover the
THE ALIEN AnON OF REASON
concrete, we have to overcome this practical, analytic view and
communicate directly with the object. In this way, as snbjects,
we identify onrse!ves with the object, and are thereby enabled
to assimilate its spontaneons but inexpressible movement.
However, we repeat, in all these attempts to get back to a
"natural" view of the world, the very desire to do so makes
impossible any definitive, lasting construction of the individnal
hnman subject. In the case of Husser!, this is because his em-
pirical ego has to be included in the transcendental act of re-
duction, and the cognitive acts within the reduced area, though
we can always distinguish the act of cognition from its content,
no longer presuppose the existence of real personality, only
the transcendental ego that is no more than a storehouse of
purified thought contents. In the case of Bergson, the em-
pirical ego is seemingly secured thanks to the distinction be-
tween the deep self and the purely cerebral fnnctions, yet is it
dissolved the moment it becomes clear that it is always a kind of
participation in the universal "psychicality" of the world. On
closer scrutiny, the boundaries of individuality become just as
blurred as are the individual houndaries of physically inter-
acting things. If the physical object turns out, when analyzed
more carefully, to be a construct cut out from the infinite
concrete universe, we must infer that the psychical subject,
too, can in the last analysis be reconstructed only by cognitive
operations that the world, since the hidden evolu-
tional cosmic impulse constitutes an indivisible whole, just as
does the universe of bodies within the scientist's field of vision.
Al! these doctrines, moreover, share the conviction that the
world organized by science-regardless of just how the de-
limiting boundaries are drawn up-is the result of creative
human energy, and hence that man is in a way responsible for
the "thing" his scientific thought constrncts. This conviction
was to become the fundamental fearure of our own century's
thought and has exerted a long-lasting influence in the most
various quarters.
133
These two factors-return to a "natural" attitude, and recogni-
tion of it as an organizing activity-justify treating this whole
period of philosophy as a relatively homogeneous development
with points of contact in literary trends and world outlooks
over the same years. Though empiriocriticism reproduces the
main positivist ideas, often more radically, the sense it gave
them was adapted to the distinctive style of the age.
CHAPTER SIX
Conventionalism-Destruction of the
Concept of Fact
L The leading idea of conventionalism. ViThat is called con-
ventionalism is not a distinct "school" of thought. The term
denotes a view of scientific method and the truth of scientific
(primarily physical) propositions, It shows affinities with em-
piriocriticism, but certain French physicists and mathematicians
arrived at it independently, (According to some writers, Henri
Poincare is erroneously regarded in France as the creator of
"scientific philosophy"; they point out that Mach formulated
his ideas before Poincare, and did so more effectively and
consistently,) The conventionalist viewpoint also has its counter-
parts in the social sciences, but historically the term is reserved
for the methodology of natural science, Conventionalism is
characterized by the problems it deals with rather than by a
specific philosophical doctrine,
The fundamental idea of conventionalism may be stated as
follows: Certain scientific propositions, erroneously taken for
descriptious of the world based on the recording and generaliza-
tion of experiments, are in fact artificial creations, and we regard
them as true not because we are compelled to do so for em-
pirical reasons, but because they are convenient, useful, or even
because they have aesthetic appeaL Conventionalists agree
with empiricists concerning the origin of knowledge, but reject
their empirical criterion of truth, Or, to pnt the same point
somewhat more accurately, the data of experience always leave
scope for more than one explanatory hypothesis, and which one
CONVENTIONALISM 135
is to be cbosen cannot be determined by experience, Rival
hypotheses. acconnting for a given aggregate of facts may be
equally sound from a logical point of view, and hence our
actual choices are accounted for by non-empirical circum-
stances.
In this sense our image of the world has a conventional
character. Some have pointed out that it is conventional in still
anotber sense, namely, most of the propositions of physics are
analytic, and so give us a sort of verbal legislation in the guise
of descriptions of observed facts, Verbal convention plays quite
a considerable part in the scientific view of the world, whether
out of aesthetic considerations or considerations of economy:
the conception of science as descriptive "generalization" from
"brute" facts, as a one-way movement of thought from "facts"
to "laws" is naive and superficial.
The leading names of French conventionalism incJnde the
famous mathematician and theoretical physicist Henri Poincare
(1854-1912), the eminent historian of science Pierre Duhem
(1861-1916), and the philosopher and religious writer Edouard
Le Roy (187G-1954), Le Roy is also known as a popularizer of
Bergson's philosophy and as an active member of the modernist
movement in French Catholic thought, Similarly radical con-
ventionalist ideas were advanced a little later by the German
methodologist Hugo Dingler (1881-1954) and the prominent
Polish philosopher Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890-1963),
The French conventionalists were less concerned with formu-
lating a scientistic philosophy than with problems posed by the
advance of physics, which involved the meaning of physical
propositions-problems Einstein solved with his theory of rel-
ativity. (Einstein said that he owed the key conception in his
special theory of relativity to Ernst Mach,) Their aim waS not
primarily to do away with metaphysics, but to define the epis-
temological boundary separating it from science, They did this
by ascribing a conventional meaning to scientific propositions,
Although this doctrine is not, strictly speaking, a variety of
posltlvism, it cannot be omitted from our survey because it
strongly influenced the subsequent development of posItIVIsm.
2. The impossibility of proving or disproving hypotheses. An
important point in conventionalist theories is their criticism of
the concept of "fact" as a possible confirmation of a "scientific
law." The conventionalists deny that there is any such thing as
"pure experience," i.e., facts that do not involve theoretical
presuppositions, but are recorded directly "from nature," so to
speak. The validity of certain scientific laws is presupposed in
the very functioning of scientific instrnments and in the way
we read them. Dnhem and Le Roy illustrate this with numerous
examples. For instance, the law of the reflection of light is
studied with the help of flat mirrors, the construction of which
presupposes the validity of the law. When we read a thermome-
ter we are assuming in advance that bodies expand uniformly
under the action of heat, for this assnmption is built into the
thermometer; yet to ascertain the uniformity of thermic ex-
pansion we use a thermometer. When we look at an object
through a magnifying lens, we see only certain portions of it,
disregarding the others (e.g., the fringes of colored bands
caused by diffraction), and this is to presuppose the validity of
certain laws of optics. Even the simplest device implies the
existence of certain laws so that any "fact" ascertained with its
help cannot be considered as "given" apart from those laws.
Thus the scientific principle of verification does not just work
from laws to facts, bnt also the other way round: there are no
"original facts," "fundamental propositions," or similar con-
structs, for every description of a fact involves one or another
prior theoretical assumption.
It follows from the foregoing that the experimentum crucis
is impossible in science, that is, no experimental situation is
possible which can convincingly single out one hypothesis as
superior to another. For to disprove any hypothesis we must
use instruments which always presuppose one or more laws, and
these laws are just as much involved in the disproving procedure
CO)'.'VENTIONALISM
137
as the hypothesis in question. Consequently we do not know
which of the logically possible statements we have disproved-
those actually tested or those presupposed in the construction
of the instruments used. Thus there is no such thing as in-
duction in the U'aditional sense. The choices made in snch cases
are not based on experience but determined by considerations
of coherence, convenience, etc. The theory of physics is a
purely man-made construction; when we disprove a hypothesis
we are merely choosing one out of a number of possible as-
sertions, the one we regard, purely by convention, as affected
by the negative resnlt of the experiment.
Since hypotheses are verified by other hypotheses, not by
appeal to the original brute facts, there always exists a number
of possible and mutually contradictory theoretical systems, any
one of which accounts as well as another for the totality of
experience. One example of such a possibility-it was not ad-
duced by a conventionalist-is the hypothesis that all of us live
on the interior surface of a sphere, and that the heavenly
bodies are at its center; this theory allegedly accounts for all
known observations once we assume a different curvature of
light beams.
According to Le Roy, we can distinguish brute facts from
scieotific facts, but only in the sense that the former or rather
the descriptions of them merely supply a record of purely
subjective perception, are inU'ospective, and devoid of scientific
value. A scientific fact is a convention, a shorthand record of a
process observed, making use of non-empirical categories. For
instance, we say, "the current rnns through the wire." But
sensory e"'Perience discloses no flowing of the current. All that
we actually observe are such phenomena as shifts of the gal-
vanometer needle, rising temperature in the wire, flashing bulbs,
magnetization of metals. We describe all these phenomena by
the term "current,') i.e., reduce them to a single, economical,
descriptive form. The expression "the current runs" is no more
than a summing up of the given phenomena, a convenient
linguistic tool, not the description of an actual process. (It
must be noted that these arguments date from a period when
the reality of the atom had been pnt in qnestion.)
Duhem, meanwhile, drew a distinction between practical facts
-findings based on measurements-and theoretical facts, i.e.,
the recording of such findings for scientific purposes. Now, a
thermometer, for example, like other measuring insu-uments, is
accnrate only within certain limits. A given temperature always
admits of an infinite number of approximations; in other words,
one and the same practical fact can be recorded by an infinite
nnmber of formulas, which we choose among "conventionally."
Improvements in our instruments of measnrement do not change
this situation, for a possible margin of error is never overcome,
only lessened. Even within a range of measurement as tiny as
we may sncceed in making it, an infinity of interpretations
remains possible.
Le Roy advanced an extreme view of the conventionality of
scientific laws. According to him, the majority of these laws
are definitions. The law governing the free fall of bodies is an
analytic proposition: it merely defines the free fall. If we hap-
pened to observe a body falling at a different rate of acceleration
than this law predicts, we would not change the law bnt say
that what we observed was not a free fall. Similarly we do not
really test the proposition that the diagonals of any square
intersect at right angles. We merely do not call "squares" those
figures in which the diagonals do not intersect at right angles.
The law of the free fall merely defines the term "free fall." In
the same way, the law of the conservation of mass is one defini-
tion of a closed system. Again, the proposition, "Phosphorus
melts at the temperature C 44"-a famous example-is not
the account of any observation, but a definition or partial
definition of phosphorus. A body similar to phosphorus in
other respects, but which melted at a different temperature, we
would not call "phosphorus." The alleged laws of science, then,
are definitions, for they characterize certain states of a thing in
CONVENTIONALISM
such a way that the characterization is made a distinctive feature
of that state. Experiment can neither prove nor disprove these
propositions, for we can always dismiss an experiment dis-
proviug them by saying that the object investigated does not
fall under the conventionally accepted designation.
According to Poincare, the part played by conventions in
science is also apparent from the circumstance that a refuted
hypothesis can always be "saved" by supplying further hy-
potheses to account for the test that disproved the former as
due to factors that modified the results expected. For instance,
there are three methods for calculating the mass of Jupiter-the
first is based on the motions of Jupiter's satellites, the second on
disturbances observed in the motions of large planets, the third
on disturbances in the motions of planetoids. Each method gives
a somewhat different result. We conld conclude that there are
different coefficients of gravitation; snch a "solution" is logically
admissible but complicated and laborions. For this reason we
assume the presence of slight errors in our measurements. Our
motive for this assumption is our preference for simplicity.
Every law that establishes a functional dependency involves
a fictitious element, Poincare goes on to say (Dingler also
raised this point). When such a function is graphed, it appears
as a certain number of points in a system of coordinates: we
connect these points by a curve, assnming that it is a regular
curve (though we have no real empirical justification for this)
rather than a zigzag, that it is continuous rather than discon-
tinuous, and that the points that do not fall into it are to he
accounted for by errors in measnrement, which we proceed to
rectify on the graph so as to obtain the desired result. To
legitimate such a graph, we should have to carry out an infinite
number of experiments, which is impossible, and so we arrive
at the law by applying the criteria of simplicity, regularity,
and aesthetic order.
Since the ultimate empirical sense of our hypotheses cannot
go beyond the actual experimental data, it makes no difference,
whether from a logical or a physical point of view, which among
the possible hypotheses accounting for a given class of facts we
are to single out as the correct one. The Ptolemaic theory
describes the motions of the planetary system just as correctly
as the Copernican, but the latter is preferable because of its
simplicity, and because it accounts for a number of facts for
which the former does not account (e.g., the movements of a
pendulum, the apparent movements of the stars, the trade
winds, the flattened shape of the earth). That is, the Ptolemaic
theory requires a greater number of hypotheses than the Co-
pernican. Physical experience alone by no means obliges us to
prefer Copernicus to Ptolemy. In other words, different hy-
potheses are, in a way, different langnages for describing the
same facts-our choice between them purely a matter of con-
venience. Similarly, we can record the same temperature on the
Fahrenheit or on the Celsius scale; the numerical values differ,
but the meaning of the recording is identical. The same is true
of any given collection of facts recorded by different and in-
compatible theories, because their empirical meaning comes
down to the same facts.
In his reflections on geometry, Poincare devoted a great deal
of attention to the structure of space, stressing the purely con-
ventional character of the features we usually ascribe to it.
There is no reason, of course, to look upon space as an entity
independent of physical relations between bodies. Nor is space
a characteristic of bodies in the sense we imagine; and, in spite
of Kant's transcendental aesthetics, it is not an a priori form
present in man's cognitive system before he experiences any-
thing whatever. The concept of space has an empirical origin;
but the homogeneous three-dimensional space of geometry is a
result of simplifying conventions. To begin with, different
senSes perceive different kinds of space, none of which coincides
with geometric space. Visual space is two-dimensional (the
third dimension originates in muscular impressions connected
with the accommodation mechanism of the crystalline lens)
CONVENTIONALISM
and is not homogeneous for different areas of the retina receive
different impressions. Nor is the space originating in kinesthetic
impressions homogeneous, for different muscular efforts are re-
quired to reach objects situated at different distances from our
bodies. Geometric space is a convention. We imagine that it has
three dimensions because our organ of sight is built in such a
way that the movements of accommodation effected by the lens
and the convergent movements of the eyeballs are in accord, but
it is possible to make lenses that obliterate this accord, and tben
space has four dimensions, for each point of the previous space
will itself constitute a continuum. However, since it is hard to
assume that suitable optical glasses increase the number of di-
mensions in "objective" space, we must admit that it is con-
venient for us to ascribe three dimensions to space. "Convenient"
here amonnts to "biologically useful," for belief in the existence
of three-dimensional space independently of our experiences
originates in associations between the object and bodily motions,
by means of which we try to reach out for objects or to ward
off blows. The localization of things in space is effected by
reference to muscular impressions produced when we reach
Ollt for things; out of the small space accessible to our body we
construct the great space by extrapolation or by generalizing
from our own spatial enviromnent, imagining a giant who can
reach any place at will by extending his arm. The propositions
of geometry are purely conventional-we have chosen the Eu-
clidean system not because our store of experiences obliges us
to do so, but because it is the moo, convenient in our everyday
contacts with solid bodies.
3 Criticisms. We have summed up the most important ar-
guments that were advanced in support of the conventionalist
interpretation of scientific theory. Some of the illustrative ex-
amples have become obsolete, but the mode of thinking char-
acteristic of this tendency can be readily illustrated from more
recent examples.
However, these arguments were subjected to criticism, not
just with reference to particular examples, but also to their
underlying assumptions. Poincare, and later Cornelius, Schlick,
and others rejected the idea that scientific laws have a purely
definitional character. These critics of Le Roy pointed ant that
he ignored the real meaning of the terms contained in snch
propositions as "phosphorus melts at C 44." "Phosphorus" does
not stand here for "a hody that melts at C 44
0
," but a body with
certain known physical and chemical properties. The proposition
in question establishes the coincidence of these properties with
the melting point, which cannot be decreed by any definition.
Therefore this proposition is not a definition, for we assert
it only when we know that the object it refers to is really
present.
Ajdnkiewicz, who at one time expounded the idea of the
analytic character of physical laws in greater detail, abandoned
it and eventnally reached the conclusion that all so-called analytic
propositions, though constituting a separate class, mnst be based
on experiential data.
As we have seen, a nnmber of conventionalist argnments
attempt to show that it is impossible to prove or disprove
scientific hypotheses experimentally. Critics of these argnments
took the line that they reflect an absolutist approach alien to
actnal scientific practice, for they fail to take into acconnt
the relative degree of probability as between rival hypotheses.
To describe the cognitive sitnation involved solely in terms
of propositions, these critics note, is beside the point of the
scientific task: of conrse, when yon do treat scientific hy-
potheses in this fashion, then acceptance or rejection is an ar-
bitrary choice. What actually makes np the scientist's mind
I
as between rival hypotheses is consideration of their relative
probability. For instance, it was formerly thonght that the
speed of light is incalcnlably great. The experiments that dis-
posed of this hypothesis were carried ant with the help of
measnring instruments operating in accordance with the laws
of mechanics. It does not follow, however, that we are free to
CONVENTIONALISM
'43
opt for the former hypothesis disregarding the laws of me-
chanics, or that our choice between the two hypotheses is
determined by personal preference, aesthetic considerations, or
reasons of simplicity. In reality it is determined by the greater
degree of probability we assign to the laws of mechanics that
govern, for example, the functioning of clocks. Similarly, the
old belief in the "spontaneous generation" of life from decaying
flesh was disproved; and our decision to reject the old belief
and to recognize the validity of the laws of the diffraction of
light, such as entered into the manufactnre of the microscope,
is not arbitrary, but determined . by the extent to which the
hypotheses or laws in qnestion can be verified. Needless to
say, experimental control is never perfect, and so scientific hy-
potheses are never absolutely infallible-this is why scientists
attempt to verify the least probable hypotheses as well as the
most probable ones. There are no absolnte proofs, but there i
are degrees of proof-and the conventionalists ignore them.
The same applies to cases where experiment leads us to for-
mulate new laws instead of modifying the old ones with the
aid of additional hypotheses. The conventionalists claim this
is done solely ant of preference for simplicity, but this is not
so. There may be borderline cases, but in most the crncial
factor is the degree of comparative probability as between the
rival formulations. "Simplicity" is a dnbious basis for jndg-
ment: wouldn't the simplest hypothesis of all be to rednce all
phenomena to a single canse, the will of God, for example? Of
course, the conventionalists do not go this far, bnt their concept
of simplicity is vagne. Scrutinized closely with reference to
actual choices made by scientists between one hypothesis and
another, the real basis for preference tnms out to have been
the degree of empirical reliability. Preference for one hypoth-
esis rather than another, ou the ground that it accounts for
more facts-whereas extensive modification of the other would
be required hefore it conld do so-is not just preference for
the more economical procedure, it is based on a conviction
144
that the hypothesis. -.;vl;tich accounts for the more facts is the
"better" of the two. It enables us to predict a greater number
of events. Here, too, we are not just appealing to the principle
of economy but to the degree of verifiability.
The same observations apply to the question whether we
are guided merely by consideratious of elegance or economy
when we decide whether a curve describing a given fnnctional
dependency is continuous, regular, etc. Although no finite num-
ber of experiments could transform our graph into one con-
tinuous line, yet it is possible to verify whether this can be
done around each point of the line. The real question is: On
whom lies the burden of proof-the man who wants to prove
that the line is discontinuous or the mau who insists that it
is continuous? It would seem that in this case, too, degree of
probability decides the issue, not economy of effort or the
elegant simplicity of the equation.
Duhem's observations on the difference between "practical"
and "theoretical" facts have not proved immuue from criticism,
either. The recording shown by a measuring instrument, if it
is to be scientifically meaningful, must be kept within the limits
of error possible with this intrument, and so it always falls
within some greater or smaller range of numerical values.
Choice among the infinite possibilities within this range is clearly
not a matter of convention; as a rule it is not made, and
would be highly improper. If your thermometer records tem-
perature with a 1/100 margin of error, you cannot add arbi-
trary figures after the second decimal point-such a procedure
would be simply nonsensical, scientifically.
Nor is the theOlY of the circular character of scientific proof
immune from objections. It justly asserts that no scientific law
is reducible, at any given stage of knowledge, to observations
of particular facts, nor can it be based upon them exclusively.
But this assertion does not justify the conclnsion that science
is merely a coherent system of interdependent laws some of
which mnst be accepted a priori, as it were, so that others
CONVENTIONALISM
145
may be logically inferred from them. For there can be no
doubt-the whole history of science and technology demon-
strates it-that more accnrate instruments can be manufactured
with the help of less accurate ones. At a certain level of
technological development there is no way of constructing com-
plex instruments without using others equally complex; it does
not follow that it is historically impossible to construct, say,
an atomic reactor starting from an unpolished stone and a stick,
since we know with certainty that this was actually what hap-
pened. To be sure, this achievement took thousands of years
and involved the brains and muscles of millions of people, and
it is hard for us to imagine all that was entailed, but there
is no reason to suppose that certain instruments must exist
ready-made before other instruments can be built.
The conventionalists described a real aspect of the science \
of their day, calling attention to the fictions implied in pnrely
methodological assumptions, according to which science is al- \
ways created by inferring alleged "inductive laws" from alleged I
"facts." They proved incontrovertibly that there is no such I
thing as a )ure fact" in and attention I
to the eXistence of logical or lingmstlc conventions III the- i
oretical knowledge. Their occasionally extreme formulations are I
not often heard today, but the irremediably relative character I
of empirical knowledge has since been generally recognized. I
In reaction to the prevailing optimism of nineteenth-century I
methodologists and philosophers, the conventionalists under-
mined confidence in the "objective" and unconditional validity
of scientific results, did away with epis'temological absolutes in
science, and with so-called "basic" facts and "pure" or "puri-
fied" experience. Their broader conclusions, according to which
the empirical sciences are a wholly artificial creation, seem
unconvincing; not so others of the arguments they put forward,
on the basis of which we think today that there is no scientific
knOWledge entirely free of "assumptions," and that it is im-
possible ever to get to the bottom of any verification. We, too,
doubt that we shall ever attain ultimate satisfaction in cognition,
including scientific cognition.
\ The epistemological conclusions the conventionalists drew
t from their own reflection have a radically relativistic character.
The propositions of physics, as Dnhem puts it, are neither true
nor false, bnt convenient or inconvenient; a theoretical system
may contain incompatible hypotheses when this is convenient.
To compel physicists to observe strict logical coherence would
be intolerable tyranny. Le Roy maintains that the sciences do
not, in general, aspire to truth but to usefulness, that they are
linguistic intruments serving to schematize and systematize ex-
perimental facts. In science, "truth," if the term may be used
at all, is not conformity with the real, but at best conformity
with experience. In other words, that which effectively meets
the standards of experience is "true," not that which, irrespective
of testing procedures, corresponds to the transcendent world
I in some pecnliar, unintelligible fashion. The pragmatic criteria
for choosing among various logically possible interpretations of
I experience (usefulness, convenience) are not merely criteria for
\1'1 determining whether this or that is true, bnt instruments thanks
to which given propositions actually become true. Or: meeting
standards or criteria is part of the definition of truth (whereas
in the classical definition truth is a certain relation between
propositions and reality, namely, a relation in which we assume
that something is actually the case regardless of whether anyone
has ascertained that it is the case, whether anyone knows or
does not know that it is. In this classical definition truth is
independent of any application of criteria; the latter serve merely
to ascertain the trnth, they do not constitute it).
One peculiarity of the conventionalists is their emphasis on
aesthetic criteria (among others) in the development of science.
By contrast with Le Roy, who characterizes science by its
technological applications, Poincare is of the opinion that science
is pursued for the sake of the beauty it can create.
The epistemological conclusions reached by these two writers,
CONVENTIONALISM
147
in conjunction with their criticism of scientific theories, are ~
fairly vague. Sometimes they come close to empiriocriticism,
sometimes they go beyond it in the direction of so-called epis-
temological idealism. Poincare says that objects external to us
are merely groups of impressions that recur a sufficient number
of times, and hence things are fairly constant combinations of
sensory impressions; the harmony of the world revealed by
scientific theories does not exist apart from the human mind,
and the term "objective," if it is to he meaningfnl at all,
stands for "intersubjective." The assertion that anything exists
apart from thought is meaningless. Le Roy, in particnlar, says
that matter is "the mind's inability to change the rhythm of
its OWn duration beyond a certain limit," i.e., a component of
experience that offers resistance to our will; at the same time,
any characterization of matter that docs not rcfer to human
eAl'erience, if only negatively, is out of the question.
4. Conventionalist ideologies. Certain general ideas advanced
by the conventionalists are connected, both logically and in
their own authors' minds, with their critique of scientific meth-
odology. Duhem, in particnlar, says explicitly that hi.s interpreta-
tion of science forestalls all ohjections to the Catholic faith
and Church. For since natural science makes no statements
ahout the real world (as his criticism of the laws of physics
shows) it cannot come into conflict with religious dogmas that
are statements about real existents-the soul (that it is im-
mortal), man (that his will is free), the Pope (that he is
infallihle). For instance, unbelievers say that man's freedom is
incompatible with the principle of conservation of energy. There
is no such incompatihility, Duhem replies: the principle of
conservation of energy is an artificial schematization of expe-
riences and permits no inference as to real objects, and hence
by definition cannot conflict with the COntent of the dogma
in question. Consequently, spiritualist metaphysics retains its
cognitive status and its claim to provide reliahle information
about the world, since scientific laws have lost that status. In
his Physics of a Believer Duhem discloses the conscious intention
behind his analyses of scientific method: they are an attempt
to neutralize scientific knowledge in relation to metaphysical
and religious controversies, to deprive naturalists and materialists
of the advantaO'es they derive from equating scientific assertions
b .
and metaphysical beliefs, and to defend Catholic dogmas. ..
Le Roy's philosophy reveals one possible way of combmll1g
conventionalism with Bergson's metaphysics. His starting point
is the interpretation of science as symbolic description, exclu-
sivelv concerned with utility and technological considerations,
but:without cognitive value. The content of science implies
no necessity, and its results are determined at least in part by
our dcsire and need for manipulative simplicity; it does not
disclose to us the truth about the world, though it may prepare
us to accept it. This interpretation is completely consistent with
Bergsonianism. If authentic cognition-knowledge of "the thing
itself" -is possible, it lies in direct contemplation; it cannot be
expressed in words, but penetrates the "inner" core of its ob-
ject and is related to mystical experience. Whereas Le Roy's
purely utilitarian interpretation of science was in keeping with
the spirit of positivism in his own day, this further theme,
which bids us look for other than scientific ways of communi-
cating with the world, clearly goes beyond any positivist pro-
gram, although the two are not contradictory (unless we assume
that scientific experience is the only valid experience). Thns Le
Roy, without abandoning his methodological views, was an ac-
tive popularizer of Bergson's vision of the world.
We observe the same consistency when we survey Le Roy's
activity as a champion of Catholic modernism. In the light of
his critique, the Catholic view of the world can be defended,
but not the Thomist interpretation of it, not Catholicism in
tenns of any realist metaphysics. According to Le Roy, no
rational arguments can strengthen religious faith, for it is irra-
tional by definition. Moreover faith needs no such strengthen-
ing, for it belongs to a domain of life entirely different from
CO}''VENTIONALISM
149
intellectual activity. The practically useful but cognitively bar-
ren schematization of the world that science produces is con-
trasted with the religious life as the domain of non-discursive
experience, in which the authentic being of God is revealed to
believers in mystical contemplation, allegories, and figures of
speech. Le Roy's mystical, symbolic, and allegorical faith, which
he shared with the majority of modernist Catholics in his day,
was, as is well known, severely condemned by the Church
under Pius X. To the modernists the irrationality of their faith
was to serve as a means of restoring harmony between secular
and religious knowledge, between the State and the Cburch,
between life here below and eschatological hopes. This harmony
was to be based on a clear-cut distinction between the two
spheres: they appear to conflict only because we do not realize
how very different their situations in cognition and in life really
are. The modernists were not just defending their faith against
rationalistic criticism, but also trying to reform the Church by
invalidating its claim to control over the secular sphere-an
autonomous science, the secular state, and secular education.
Their doctrine was intended to secularize public life while pre-
serving all the Christian values-these last relegated, however,
to the sphere of personal experience. It was, not without reason
that the term "modernism" was applied to an important ideologi-
cal movement and literary current in the same period, which
was not specifically Catholic.
A special variety of conventionalism is represented by Hugo
Dingler's philosophy. Adducing the same or similar arguments
concerning the meaning of physical propositions, he attempted
to formulate a systematic picture of the world based 011 volun-
taristic assumptions. Because the totality of our knowledge is
valid only ill relation to freely accepted conventions, and be-
cause these conventions are essentially utilitarian, i.e., adjusted
to aims mankind freely sets for itself, our view of the world
ought to be recognized as a creation of the human will. Further-
more, the original, basic facts of human experience involve the
150
will. Thefree will sets itself freely chosen aims, and our picture
of the world consists of assertions regarded as helpfnl for achiev-
ing those aims. This is a possible thongh certainly not a logi-
cally compelling interpretation of the consequences of con-
ventionalism. Concerned with the place scientific thinking
occupies in human life, it does not propose additional, allegedly
richer sources of knowledge.
5. Consequences. Conventionalism represents an extension of
( positivist philosophy, but in one sense it is also a refutation of
I it, the expression of a self-destructive tendency inherent in it.
What is essential from our point of view here is not any ques-
tion abont the verifiability of scientific hypotheses, but the
meaning of conventionalist criticisms in philosophical contro-
versy.
J
Two circumstances deserve to be mentioned when we try to
. determine the special part conventionalism has played in the
history of positivism.
First, traditional positivist philosophy assumed that science is
a classification of facts, which adds nothing to their contents. In
other words, so-called generalization and explanatory interpreta-
tion have no independent cognitive functions, but serve as sym-
bolic shorthand records of experiments actually carried onto This
is, by and large, a nominalist assumption. The unobservable
components in our description of the world belong to the do-
main of language. We describe "the given" with the aid of
linguistic means pointing to something that is not "given" bnt
is snpposed to refer to an nndisclosed nonspatial "internal"
strncture of the phenomena. This does not imply, however, that
we assert anything abont the non-observable world, that we
ascribe it any definite features: we merely produce for onr-
selves a more convenient method of description, which enables
ns to schematize experience more effectively than if it con-
sisted only of detailed descriptions of the experiences them-
selves. The given or that which is "positive" constitutes the
only objective content of science-the rest is an instrnment for
CONVENTIONALISM
communicating and memorizing it; no difference between "the
given" and "the essence" is discoverable in science.
Now, what conventionalism set ont to criticize was this no-
tion of "the given." The writers representing this current saw
that to assume that the movement of thought from primordial
fact to scientific schematization is a purely one-way movement
is untenable: there is no such thing as an original or primordial
fact, and scientific assertions, laws, and theories are not reducible
to "fact," hence do not contain that "pure" elementary content
that merely needs to be dressed up in words so as to be re-
corded more easily. Hence-in keeping with the spirit of posi-
tivism-the conventionalist depreciation of scientific values in
favor of utilitarian or aesthetic ones. This variety of positivism
to some extent weakened its assnmptions, for it undermined the
belief in a simple relationship between perception and theory
(perception-interpretation-verification) by laying bare the ab-
stract character of the "original" perceptions. This gave rise to
the question: Is the empirical position traditionally associateO)
with positivist philosophy still tenable in the light of tIns criti- J
cism?
The se.2..nd point to be considered is this. Ever since Hnme,
by redncing metaphysical doctrines and concepts to unproduc-
tive, purely verbal creations, positivism has been directed against
both spiritualism and materialism. The methodological doctrine
under discussion seems to be directed exclusively against scien-
tists or naturalists opposed to spiritnalism and religious faith.
Weare dealing here with an explicitly stated intention: to recon-
stmct the epistemological status of scientific activities in such
a way as to avoid their possible conflict with religion and so to
preserve the latter's cognitive validity-the validity of religious
faith contrasted with a science whose values are primarily ntili-
tarian. In marked departnre from the eminently positivist tradi-
tion (which inclndes the empiriocriticists), the conventionalists
nentralize only science-eliminate it as a possible competitor to
spiritualist metaphysics. In theory, conventionalism would be
152
TIlE ALIENATION OF REASON
compatible with the opposite intention, namely, to neutralize
religion as a possible competitor to science. However, no one
seems to have attempted this.
Thus the conventionalist methodology is also a development
from positivism in the sense that it culminates in the defeat of
its purpose; for instead of radically cleansing human cognition
of metaphysical incrustations, it merely discourages the cogni-
tive aspirations of theoretical thinking to the profit of spiritual-
istic beliefs.
Needless to say, "additions" to POSlUVIst critique that take
the form of religious ideas cannot he held to be organically
connected with the fundamental rules of positivist thought: on
the contrary, they are rather exceptional in the history of posit iv-
ism, For all that, they show how positivist criticism may turn up
in unexpected contexts. It turns out that positivism itself can re-
habilitate metaphysics-eveu an extremely spiritualistic or mysti-
cal metaphysics-without in the least altering its assumptions,
merely snpplementing them with further premises. Bergson's
philosophy is regarded as the most radical attempt to defeat
nineteenth-century positivism at the turn of the century. But
Le Roy showed that Bergson's metaphysics is compatible with a
positivist interpretation of science. This result may be regarded
as destructive of positivism, for it discloses that its anti-meta-
physical tendency can be overcome withont violating its rules,
and even snggests that, in accordance with the same mles, once
science has been rednced to a ntilitarian pursnit, we should look
elsewhere for the satisfaction of pnrely cognitive needs. At the
same time, this sitnation may be interpreted as a victory of
positivist thonght: it shows that even its adversaries regard its
{
results .as i.e., have resigned themse:ves to the fact
that SCIentIfic knowledge cannot have metaphYSIcal pretensIOns,
and that metaphysical aspirations mnst conseqnently find justifi-
cations other than those scientific knowledge can provide. If so,
Bergson's philosophy is after all the fruit of positivist conqnests:
it accepts science in the form given it by positivist criticism;
CONVENTIONALISM
153
it agrees to doom it to eternal mechanism, i.e., recognizes that
its place in hnman life is pnrely practical or technological and
seeks to satisfy its thirst for knowledge by turning to other
sources.
Whether we decide to recognize the alliance between positiv-
ism and vitalism as a victory or a defeat for positivism, de-
pends on whether we classify the spiritualist or Catholic positiv-
ists nnder the history of positivism or nnder the history of
spiritualist metaphysics. In the former case they will figure on
the debit side in the ledger of positivism, in the latter they will
rather tend to enhance its credit. The matter is not entirely
nnimportant: its timeliness is readily to be discerned in con-
temporary religions thonght-namely, in the works of those
theologians who took cognizance of the positivist critiqne of
metaphysics, and, having accepted the nentrality of scientific
knowledge, try to characterize the meaning of religions faith
without appealing to rational argnments drawn from science.
We will attempt below to snggest an interpretation of this state
of affairs, in the light of which the qnestion we have jnst raised
-victory or defeat?-will turn out to have been falsely formn-
lated.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pragmatism and Positivism
What is usually called "pragmatism" is not as a rule regarded
as falling within the history of positivist philosophy, but is
treated rather in relation to the so-called "philosophy of life."
The latter designation, taken in a broad sense, refers not only to
a specific German "school," but also to other philosophical
schools that treat human culture in biological terms and claim
that it is impossible to evaluate intellectual life and its produc-
tions from any other point of view. Pragmatic philosophy, at
least that version of it most readily associated with the name,
can certainly he so characterized, but it is easy to see that it
also has affinities with at least one variety of positivism, namely
the one we dealt with above in discussing Mach and Avenarius
(the affinities are especially close the latter).
Here we are solely concerned with this one aspect of prag-
matism, and we will not go into the various complications and
ramifications of the doctrine as a whole. Our aim is to lay hare
the peculiar connection that exists between positivist thought
and the so-called philosophy of life, and to show how certain
positivist postulates tilt over into their opposites once they are
interpreted in a particular way. For it is well known that radical
positivists look upon the philosophy of life as diametrically
opposed to their rules of thinking and have often condemned it
in the name of scientific philosophy.
Pragmatism is held to be, no doubt justly, the most original
American contribution to the history of philosophy. After a pe-
PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM
'55
riod marked by the dominance of transcendental idealism and
versions of Hegelianism, the United States produced a
philosopillcal style that long enjoyed the reputation of being
"typically American," especially well suited to the manners, cus-
toms, and popular ideals of that part of the world at a time when
its outlook was most optimistic and its spirit of enterprise most
energetic. In its fully developed form, pragmatism Was a reaction
against the absolutism of closed metaphysical systems, but also
scienticist and materialist metapbysics. As a philosophy,
Its most characteristic claim was that it is a flexible instrument in
everyday life.
r. Peirce's positivism. The origin of tins philosophy, however,
,:oreshad?wed its eventual development. The term "prag-
matIsm was comed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-I914), who
used it to characterize a scientific method for distinguishing
properly fommlated questions from fictitious ones, valuable an-
swers from unrewarding ones, real matters of controversy from
purely verbal ones. In connection with this program Peirce
formulated rules closely allied to the best traditions of positivism.
Widespread interest in Peirce's philosophic and scientific con-
tributions is of relatively recent date. In his lifetime Peirce was
not so much unknown as misunderstood, for William James
presented him to the public as the originator of a doctrine that
Was in fact originated by William James himself. In the end
Peirce preferred not to be called a "pragmatist," on the grounds
that the far more famous hut frivolous James had totally mis-
represented his doctrine.
Peirce had an encyclopedic mind and was active in almost
every field of natural science. He stressed the need for rigorous
:nethod in and was anxious to cure philosophy of its
1l1veterate vices-verbalism and idle speculation. His writings are
somewhat pedantic and highly impatient of human stupidity;
they faithfully reflect his personality, which appears to have
been a difficult one. He had no academic career, and none of
his books was published in his lifetime; as for snch disciples as
he made, he hastened to dissociate himself from them. From
around 1870 on, he published articles in which he pointed out
errors in scientific and lay thinking alike; one of these articles,
entitled "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878), has become a
classic of nineteenth-centnry philosophy.
Peirce's earliest observations, at least, are simple and lucid.
He maintained that we must not rely on the feeling of self-
evidence in cognition, for it is often misleading. Once we have
snfficiently familiarized ourselves with any idea, it comes to seem
perfectly clear. There is no idea so ohscure that someone coul.d
not come to regard it as self-evident. Furthermore, authentic
knowledge is a sum total of discursive components expressed
in symbols accessible to all. To believe that the world or any
of the things that make it up is in principle inexpressible in
langnage is anti-scientific. The rnles of thinking are fnndamen-
tally the same in every sphere of human inquiry. The sciences
have a certain number of methodological rules common to them
all: namely, rules of clarity, criticism, verifiability, and objectiv-
ity. Philosophy can achieve scientific status and develop empiri-
cal methods if only it will rid itself of meaningless terms and
falsely formulated problems.
What, then, is to be done? The only function of thinking is
to lead us to certain convictions. A conviction or belief-the
product of thinking-performs two functions. It appeases doubt
and determines a specific rule of behavior. Every judgment
strengthens a practical rule, which can be expressed as a con-
ditional sentence, the main clause of which is in the imperative
mood. In other words, the meaning of any statement we accept
lies in how, and whether, we actually carry it out. To find
whether a statement means anything, we must ask how and
whether it affects our actions and expectations; to find out what
it means exactly, we need only consider what practical conse-
quences it involves. Peirce explicitly goes so far as to say that
the meaning of a judgment is entirely exhausted in its practical
157
consequences-according to him, this is what defines pragma-
tism.
The main pnrpose of this theory is to eliminate pseudo-con-
victions and pseudo-ideas from intellectual life, to arrive at a
criterion that will enable us to deal with answerable questions,
and only with answerable questions. According to Peirce, the
matter is of the utmost importance: a great many people waste
their time on matters unworthy of inquiry or even-something
that smacks of intellectual debaucbery-like to amuse themselves
with questions they know to be insoluble. It is easy to detect
deep mystery where verbal confusion alone creates the problem.
How, then, are we to formulate a criterion for distinguisbinil
real problems from fictitious ones? Practical applicability affords I
the best test. If two statements produce the same practical effect,
there is no doubt but that tbeir meanings are identical; an asser-
tion that changes nothing in our expectations of the em irical
~ means nothing at all. Discourse that serves only to pro-
duce certain emotions in us, for instance, bas nothing to do with
thinking, any more than fresh thinking is involved when we re-
peat a statement in a second language. It will readily be seen
that the majority of theological and metaphysical controversies
tnrn out to be meaningless in the light of this criterion. Most
of the assertions involved may not deserve to be called false in
the positivist sense, but they will turn out to be concatenations
of sound devoid of semanti.c value. Catholics and Protestants
fancy themselves in disagreement abont the meaning of transub-
stanti.ation; but if they will consider the practical consequences
involved in the assertion that wine is literally blood and by the
assertion that it is blood only figuratively, they will see at once
that neither of these assertions entails any expectations concern-
ing the occurrence of empirically knowable events. Hence we
may safely conclude not that the controversy cannot be settled
or refer to some profound mystery of existence, but simply that
there is no matter for controversy, that the controversy is more
apparent than real. The idea of "force" was and still is taken
to stand for a mysterious reality of which we grasp the effects
but not the "essence." Once we apply our pragmatic criterion of
meaning, however, the mystery turns out to be a verbal fiction.
For tbere is no difference discernible to physics between the
statement that force "is" acceleration and the statement that
force "produces" acceleration. The world has no
properties "hidden" behind the observable ones, and It IS only
philosophers' fondness for systems that makes them . less
cerned with how things are in reality than WIth dlscovenng
which assertions are or are not compatible with the constructions
they invent. Thinking worthy of the name consists in asking
questions that admit of possible answers: such eventu-
ally compel general agreement. A question IS real, I.e., IS a ques-
tion properly speaking, only wheu an answer to It can be found
-even though it may take a great deal of trouble, and even
though we are not sure that mankind will Jas't long enongh to
find it.
Every word denoting a thing or a quality must be subjected
to the pragmatic test before it can be legitimately employed. To
know what it means we must state the practical steps by
which we can verify whether a given object corresponds to the
word in question. "To say that a body is heavy means simply
that, in the absence of opposing force, it will fall" ("How to
Make Our Ideas Clear"). It does not mean that it has some
property of "heaviness" that merely "manifests itself'.' whe:l it
falls. We can verify that a diamond is harder than lion smce
we can scratch iron with a diamond, but no such test can be
made for the assertion that the seraphim are higher in rank than
the cherubim (the latter example is not Peirce's but is in keep-
ing with his intentions).
Most commentators agree that there is an essential difference
between Peirce's early writings (best kuown today) and those
dating from after 1890 in which he criticized philosophical
determinism, came out in favor of freedom, asserted that new
creations are possible, made use of anthropomorphic expression
159
in describing nature, and abandoned his earlier nominalist in-
terpretation of scientific laws.
However, the earlier writings are what made his name im-
pOl'tant in the history of positivism. Peirce was aware that his
leading ideas were in the tradition of Hnme. But he thought
that a clear formulation of the criterion of meaning, appealing
to practice as the only possible touchstone, would supplement
the old empiricism or state its most important recommenda-
tions with greater accuracy. Pragmatism as he saw it-and this
circumstance is basic for grasping the difference between him
and later pragmatists-sought to formulate criteria of meaning,
but did not renounce the traditional idea of truth. In other
words: Peirce asked that practical effectiveness be treated as a
criterion of truth, and practical tes'tability iSthe rule by means
of which meaningful statements are to
m""ningless Olles. He did not assert that to apply this criterion
creates, so to speak, a situation of truth-he did not define trnth
practical effectiveness. waS to him a of cor-
respondence between judgments and actual states of affairs, just
as it was to Aristotle: em..Eirjca! criteria merely hel"e us dis-
cover it. Nor did Peirce think that practical usefulness deter-
meaningfulness or rationality of cognitive procedu;:.es.
On the contrary, he emphasized the purely cognitive functions
of science, in the conviction that its technological applications,
though resulting from effective knowledge, do not set limits to
scientific interest and cannot lead to any prohibitions concern-
ing the objects of thought. On this score Peirce as an example
of the "purely" scientific mind, concerned with perfecting
knowledge, not with its possible immediate benefits. His writings
reflect, along with a pedantic kind of dryness, the typically
positivist tendency to do away with fictitious differences be-
tween the world as we observe it and its alleged hidden qualities.
Reality is not the "manifestation" of any other, "deeper,'! lTIOre
enigmatic and so more authentic reality. The world contains no
Tystery, merely problems to be solved. Differences between
phenomenon and essence, between empirical qualities and the
nature of things are purely verbaL The criterion of practice
serves only to unmask the cognitive futility, the fictitious char-
acter of such differences that, when taken for granted, are de-
structive of human thinking, of life itself, of the whole universe
of values. In this sense Peirce may also be regarded as a cham-
(pion of scientism, that is, the doctrine according to which any
I question that cannot he settled by the methods of the natural
)
and deductive sciences is an improper qnestion, and every state-
. ment containing an answer to an improper qnestion is itself
'improper or, more precisely, meaningless.
2. The pTagmatic Tehabilitation of metaphysics. Like Peirce,
William James (1842-1910) studied natural science before he
took up philosophy. But his intellectual orientation was very
different from Peirce's-something James seems scarcely to have
noticed. To Peirce, natural science was above all a school of
experimental rigorousness in pursuit of scientific truths inde-
pendent of ourselves. To James, it served primarily to justify a
biological interpretation of man; man, according to him, not
only in his physical existence but also in his intellectual behavior,
in his scientific and logical works, is in the grip of biological
necessity. His medical background may have contributed to the
development of this outlook, but its essential element is the
spirit of utilitarianism carried to radical consequences: extended
not only to the world of values but also to the purely cognitive
functions.
The opposition between impartial explanatory knowledge and
useful knowledge was certainly nothing new. We can trace the
beginnings of this idea in writings by fourteenth-century nomi-
nalists, who in effect appealed to the criterion of usefulness
when they questioned the value of the Aristotelian categories
for understanding the world, and when they ascribed a purely
practical rather than a descriptive meaning to scientific knowl-
edge (particularly astronomy). Later, this was how Osiander
interpreted the Copernican theory when he defended it on the
N{AGMATISM AND POSITIVISM
grounds of its usefulness rather than its truth in the traditional
sense of the term. Purely utilitarian interpretations of various
religious and metaphysical truths are often to be met with in
the history of modern philosophy-in Hobbes, in certain of the
Encyclopedists, and in Kant. However, though such ideas were
inspired by different motives, the partisans of a "pragmatic"
interpretation of certain domains of knowledge were as a rule
convinced that there also exists a domain of truth accessible to
man, where we behave not just as though the world looks this
way or that, but also entertain the idea that it truly is this way
or that.
James's doctrine is most clearly distinguished by the unlimited
applications he makes of the utilitarian conception of knowledge.
are instruments for reacting efficiently to the world"
means of ma!li.p.ulating things or coming to practic:I-gnps with
J;hs;m. There is no reason to ascribe any other meaning or value
The meaning of every statement is wholly contained
ilL the practical consequences it entails; when two different
st;::,tements result in the same behavior their meanings are identi-
ca.s-a statement that involves no practical consequences means
nothing.
Iqterpreted certain way, these rules bring to mind Peirce's
he
does not aim at merely formulating criteria for distinguishing
meaningful statements from meaningless ones, and methods for
determining the meaning of a statement; what he asserts is that
the meaning of a statement is iden . cal with its practical conse-
quences, that these onset uences re the meaniH not merely a
m,;:ans of arriving at it. Hence the distinction hetween the true
and the false according to utilitarian criteria, which is funda-
mental to James, is not to he met with at all in Peirce. There
is no such thing as truth viewed as abstract conformity in-
dependent of human intervention hetween a given statement
and that to which the statement refers. Truth is nothing but the
usefulness the statement has for our actions. As against Peirce,
to whom true statements disclose their truth by the effectiveness
of actions based on the assumptiou that they are true, to James,
only that is true whose recognition benefits us in some way:"
any other conception of truth is meaningless. Thus truth is not I
I
correspondence between our statements and the way things are,
but between our statements and the possible gratifications we
may experience by accepting these statements. This is a purely
biological interpretation of cognition: just as the knee-jerk reflex
is neither "true" nor "faLse" but, at most, biologically normal
or pathological, and just as the secretion of insulin can be
"good" or "bad" according to whether it is useful or harmful
to the organism, so the "secretion" of tflooght is to be judged
by the same criteria. Man's cognitive behavior is a specific type
of reaction to his environment: it is true when this reaction is
------ -- ,
biologically useful, "false" in the opposite case. Truths, scientific
theories, .. a
I1
9. .......!!Ie .....
p),.!ld.eD> ()fu5,-liutpracticaLmeansior dealing with the environ-
ment.
-'-Radical relativism is the natul'al conseqll,<nce of tbis positiOn.
One and the same judgment may be true or false depending on
the situation in which it is made. It is impossible to speak of
the trutlL of a judgment without specifying for whom and in
what situation it is true. To know the truth, one might say, is to
be efficient, sound in practical affairs. Pragmatism is a means
for evaluating cognitive contents of every kind by judging how
effective they are when applied to whatever is vitally impor-
tant. Truth characterizes judgments in respect to human situa-
tions. Generally speaking, to James cognition is evaluation con-
ceived of as a technique of success. More especially, pragmatism
renounces all prohibitions referring to the assertion of any con-
viction, so long as these prohibitions are motivated by logical
considerations, by purely intellectual requirements, or by meta-
physical doctrines. We are entitled to believe anything at all if
believing it is advantageous to us or helps us in life. The "only
reality" is success in life broadly (also subjectively) under-
stood. "Usefulness" can in turn be characterized by instinctual
requirements. Reason is an extension of instinctual life, con-
sciousness an instrument of the latter. We have various instincts,
which reveal their presence in various periods of life: the instinct
of fear, competitive, fighting, acquisitive instincts (according to
James, the acquisitive instinct manifests itself in man before the
age of two). Thus we must infer that we are free to recognize
anything and everything whose recognition satisfies instinctual
needs and hence leads to increase in our possessions, success
in competition and struggle. The intellect has purely guiding
functions: it makes no sense to ask, How are things constituted
really? bur only, What do I get if I believe tIllS or that? And
since given belief may be usefnl to one man and harmful to
another-which is obvious, and of which James is perfectly
aware-there is no reason to shrink from the inference that
something may be false for me that is true for someone else,
or even that something may be false for me today that was
true yesterday. Science is not a collection of truths in any
current, traditional, metaphysical, or transcendental sense, but a
collection of practical directives that make sense when they can
be carried out, and that are true when they further life, mnltiply
energy, provide gratification. Or: a cognitive act is an emotion-
ally stimulated act of the will. That assent to a belief is not
the automatic result of the compelling pressure of the world on
the mind, but an act of volition or resolve is a Cartesian idea , ,
however, according to Descartes, this circumstance serves only
to account for the presence of error in our beliefs (the will is
free to accept or reject a judgment in regard to which reason
operating in accordance with the correct rules would have' to
suspend judgment or to judge differently). According to James,
reason has no rules other than those that incline the will to
assent; consequently the cognitive act is not subject to evaluation
by comparing this act, independently of human assent, with an
equally independent real state of affairs; rather, the cognitive
act is this very assent, which is motivated by the hope of attain-
ing gratification thereby. To recognize something is to make
a practical commitment thanks to which a fragment of the world
promises gratification, provided it is treated in a certain way.
There is no difference hetween the conviction that this frag-
ment of the world has "in itself" these or other qualities and
the vital impnlse that accepts this conviction in the hope of suc-
cess. In this sense it may be said that from the pragmatist point
(of view truth is continually being made and remade: onr cogni- \
hive bond with the world is the continual making of the world.
Needless to say, it is easy to point out pae.doxical cOl}e-
(and this has often been done), particu-
larly if we consider the extremer formulations scattered through-
out James's writings. If the ground of assent to any judgment
is identical with the psychological motive for assenting to it in
the hope of gaining some advantage thereby, we may ask: On
what grounds do I assent to the judgment that Socrates died in
399 B.C.? If asserting this judgment affords me no advantage,
it is meaningless. Suppose I am a student taking an examination
On the history of ancient philosophy: the knowledge contained
in this judgment will then be useful, for it will help me to pass
the test, but once I have passed it, the knowledge becomes useless
and by the same token the statement about Socrates becomes
nonsensical. Or: what is the meaning (to me) of the statement
that Rome is situated on the river Tiber? Actually it means
nothing at all for it cannot affect my behavior in any way.
This would not be so, however, for an inhabitant of Rome who
crosses bridges every day, and should lone day be a soldier in
an army setting out to conquer Rome, this piece of geographical
information will take on meaning for me, too, and the statement
will ((become" true.
G
AS a matter of fact James occasionally tempered the extremism
of his formulations, referring to the existence of a surplus of
truths that have no present function but deserve to be remem-
cred since they may come in handy at some fnture time. Thus
it would be somewhat unfair (although one can take him up on
16
5
his extremer formulations) to ascribe to him the conviction that
"truth" is solely that which can be nseful at a given moment,
hie et nunc. Nevertheless, he upheld the fundamental concep-
tIOn of knowledge qualified only from the point of view of
biological usefulness, and hence relative and devoid of all tran-
scendental connotations. Just how large or small the "surplus'\
of only potentIally useful knowledge may be IS nowhere de- \
fined clearly, and the pragmatist remains free to set his own I
boundaries.
A..!.!2!;her paradoxical consequence of this view, and one that
deserves particular atteiitiOrl,-1Sthat the scope of truths we
are entitled to accept is altogether unlimited, so long as they
are useful to us in any respect whatsoever. This leaves room
for any article of religious faith or metaphysical doctrine from
which we expect to benefit in Some way. There would be
no reason to give up religious convictions, considering that
they may raise our spirits, protect us from discouragement,
fill us with optimism. James does not shrink from drawing this
mference, and accounts for this attitude by his aversion to
"dogmatism"; bis refusal to take a negative stand in religious
matters follows from this. If the existence of God gives us
certainty as to the moral order of the world, if belief in
freedom of the will entails the promise of reward or stimulates
our creative energies, we may believe the one and the other
with the same certainty as the most reliable evidence of the
senses.
Thus pragmatist philosophy amounts to a kind of
a basic readiness to accept anything and
everything, and boundless flexibility where moral rules enter
into cognitive functions. Any other view is exposed to the
objection of being rigidly dogmatic, of sacrificing the real values
of life to abstract metaphysical fictions. This is indeed_the case
on . it is granted tha'--E.:.ality has no inherent .'lualities that
can be interprete as such, but is of op-
p.ll.J:!J!nities
166 THE ALIENATiON OF REASON
'peaning."" Pragmatism starts from assumptions similar to those of
empiriocriticism, but differs from the latter by its striking for-
mulations, loose aphorisms, and analytical unscrupulousness. Like
empiriocriticism, it attempts to ground our thinking about the
world on a concept of "experience," which supersedes all "sub-
stantialized" entities such as matter or spirit, and treats them
as secondary distinctions made within the area of experience
itself; it also seeks to do away with unanswerable questions.
But whereas, according to the empiriocriticists, the possibility of
applying a judgment effectively consisted in the fact that the
judgment entitles us to certain expectations in the world of
experience, and that it can be tested by the success or failure
of our predictions-according to the pragmatists it is sufficient
that we be able to "do" something with a given judgment,
to be entitled to regard it as meaningful. Here we see how
metaphysics driven out the front door comes back again through
the back door-only now not as a "truth" that discloses the
secrets of being, but as a means to an end, were it only a
spiritual balm or the injection of a stimulating drug. However,
the pragmatic interpretation revealed consequences of the bio-
logization of knowledge, which the empiriocriticists had not
noticed. After all, they knew that both metaphysical doctrines
and religious faith can be interpreted as instruments serving to
ensure the biological survival of the species, and at the same
time were couvinced that scientific theories have the same char-
acter; thus they had no good reason to deny the former the
same validity they granted the latter. On this score the pragmatic
rehabilitation of metaphysics seems more consistent with the
assumptions of radical biologism. James's philosophy, because
it entitles us to believe anything at all provided our belief
"pays," rules out all possibility of attaining the goal Peirce beld
to be paramount-the distinction between nonsense and science.
The question, What is truth? can in fact be interpreted as
implying a certain metaphysical theory; this is why James re-
places it with the question, What is worth believing? but he
PRAGMATISM AND POSITIVISM 16
7
formulates no limitations to prevent us from embracing the very
metaphysical doctrine the former question implies, to avoid which
the original question Was rephrased. It would appear that James
uses the term "metaphysics" in a pejorative sense to designate
specific theories (e.g., realist" epistemologies, determinism, any
type of monism), but spares from this stigmatization doctrines
that negate these theories or supply different answers for the
Same questions. Indeed, James himself championed an image of
the world that can be readily classified as "metaphysical," and
that is closely related to the pragmatic method by its tolerance
and openness. It is a plnralist image of the world, admitting
of contradictions, emphasizing the variety of experience, its per-
petual fluidity and novelty.
We have no reason to favor determinism; only a fragment
of the world is known to us, and nothing obliges us to suppose
that an immutable universal order governs everything. Despite
the rationalist constructions of a Hegel or a Spencer the world
is always open and fnll of possibilities, and only our belief
that this is so makes life worth living. If an immntable order
predetermines all that happens, if there are no surprises, no
unpredictable evems, life is not worth living. There is no need
to force every observed irregolarity into new regolarities, we
are free to accept every fact individnally, we need not worry
about coherence or regret that we possess no universal key
to explain away all contradictions. Only the incorrigible meta-
physician aSSlImes in advance that the world is governed by a
single principle and that the variety of experience is merely its
manifestation. What is real is the ever-changing flux of ex-
perience, within which we stake out points of concentration
for practical purposes, to make the world more manageable;
consciousness is composed of the same data as things, and the
distinction between "inner" and "outer" is artificial and sec-
ondary. The data of experience-to which we have direct access,
not just through ideas or representations-are signs enabling
us to make predictions, and with our practical interests in mind
we organize these signs into snch groups as, for instance, "phys-
ical objects" or "minds." But experience itself contains no
elementary particles that go to form richer strnctures, as as-
sociational psychology claims. On the contrary, psychic life
is one continuous flnx; it is only by a process of abstraction
that we break np the latter into parts and identify certain objects
as "permanent." This whole system of differentiations is not
governed by any intellectual rule, bnt is subject to will and
fcelings, which pick ant things from the flux of experience,
choose truths from among possible judgments, and determine
values and beliefs.
The extraordinary popularity of James's ideas in the United
States undoubtedly reflects the adaptability of the pragmatic
conception of the world to currently recognized values. The
pragmatic) theory of trnth is essentially a philosophy of in-
dividual success: its radical empiricism and opposition to barren
metaphysics perfectly express the attitude of a man for whom
"nothing counts" save what can help him get ahead in life.
But it would be unjust to account for the popularity of
pragmatism merely by the manners, customs, and social con-
ditions of the country where it was born. Pragmatism developed
a conception of the world that is interesting philosophically
and deserves attention because, among other reasons, it showed
that the catchwords of empiricism could be given an unexpected
twist, that it was possible to rehabilitate metaphysics and reli-
gion without dropping any basic empiricist assumptions. Pragma-
tism disclosed a hitherto unforeseen connection beween the
positivist approach to knowledge and the so-called philosophy
of life.
One cousequence of pragmatism was to get rid of the dualism
between value judgments and descriptive statements. From the
pragmatist point of view exactly the same standards-namely,
the standards of utility-are applied in the case of theoretical
assertions, value judgments, and the assessment of social in-
stitutions. Thus there is no reason to break down our statements
J
I.
(
PRAGMATISM ANn POSITIVISM
into descriptive and valuational or, in the case of the latter
,
to look for different, non-empirical epistemological foundations.
The traditional question concerning the difference between "the
and "the good"-and whether something is good "in
Itsclf" or becomes good only in virtue of our decision-this
question is eliminated once it has been established that truth
no more than one species of the genus "good,') and "good')
IS defined in the utilitaTian sense. This is one of the possible
ways to avoid the dichotomy that has proved so troublesome
in the history of materialism and positivism, and that has been
revived mOTe recently by the analytical schoo!'
3 Other versions of the pragmatic method. Its over-all meaning.
The last-mentioned consequence of the pragmatic attitude is
strikingly expressed in the philosophy of (1859-
J952) Convinced, like James, that practical applicability is a
standard of value and criterion of truth, Dewey thought that
this practical or instrumental approach is equally valid in ref-
erence to our ideas about the world the values we assert , ,
and our social and political institutions-in other words, that
questions we put before accepting or rejecting a statement are
of the same type as questions we ask about the desirability
of some social activity. Consequently, jndgments are divided I
into "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" from the point of view I
of the goal we wish to achieve; that is, they favor or obstruct
actions leading to this end. This is the meaning of truth and
falsity in the instrumental sense. Dewey, however, was not
so much interested in the conditions of individual snccess as
in the improvement of )?ublic life and the prospects of political
democracy, and for this reason his epistemology departs from
James's pragmatism in one essential respect: he asserts the
existence and supremacy of values that are not cormected with
individual success, but bind all men equally-in other words,
the existence of a primary collective utility that can provide
for soclallY-impurra1:tt;::hPjces.This is why the
relativity of of it does not entail the
paradoxical consequences mentioned above.
ophe1' sets.J.or.himself is to analyze the social effects.resultitJg
from the acceptance. of given doctri"es;
as we' al]alyze the effects ofgivenp()litical i11stitutiollS. Thus
is no difference between cognition and valuation, for
knowledge as a whole is valuation, an attempt to describe the
reality of the "good" from the point of view of our practical
behavior. But since questions about usefulness refer primarily
to social usefulness, "truth\" ceases to be a means to an
individual end at a certain moment in man's life, and becomes
an instrument of social action; it remains relative as before, but
relative to a broadly understood "collective interest" and hence
preserving a that
J ames's doctrine, if consistently applied, could not ascribe to
it. Philosophy plays a part in social conflicts and is not exempt
f.rom awareness of the part it plays; it can be conservative or
it can favor social progress, and should recognize this. In
contrast to James, Dewey was convinced that religious ideas
cannot function as socially important values, that they block
human initiative, people's ability to control their own lives
and develop their intelligence, inventiveness, and creativity. In
this sense, such ideas are "false" -we have no other criteria
for evaluating them. All in all, Dewey was perhaps closer to
Peirce than to James for, although he preserved to the last
au aversion and contempt for metaphysical controversy, with
which he had become familiar in his youth as a pupil of
American Hegelians, he believed in the possibility of perma-
nently valid and intersubjective criteria of knowledge, and hence
in the existence of criteria that cannot be invalidated by an
individual's momentary caprice or need. Moral values like cogni-
tive values preserve this socially constant character; although
there are no transcendent or transcendental values irrevocably
"given" to man, it is false to conclude that the world of values
is governed by the principle of de gustibus . . . , as most
positivists imagine. Values are not defined by their ability to
17
1
provide immediate gratification to individual men, but by their
lasting social usefulness, and only that should be asserted as
a value whose effects on collective life can be publicly tested
and recognized as useful. In his attempts to construct the con-
cept of a social subj ect, in his instrumentalist interpretation of
the philosopher's life, in his hope for the practica.! realization
of philosophy, Dewey was closer to the Marxist tradition than
J ames, although he departed from this tradition by his political
liberalism and personalist orientation.
At the turn of the century pragmatism enjoyed great pop-
ularity and was developed along a number of lines in Enropean
philosophy as well. In England it was used by F. C. S. Schiller
(1864-1937) to criticize transcendentalist doctrines; he reached
even more radical conclusions than James by reducing all cogni-
tive functions to acts of personal expression and declared that
questions concerning truth in the mimetic sense are meaning-
less. He also projected a voluntaristic logic dealing solely with
the expressive relation between judgments and the intentions
of the person who asserts them. The pragmatist movement
showed considerable strength in Italy where it waS for a time
championed by Giovanni Papini; one of Yapini's pupils was
Mussolini, who associated this philosophy with Fascist doctrines
of irrationalism, voluntarism, and activism. It would, however,
he absurd to take this extension of pragmatism seriously in a
survey of the latter. One of the few champions of pragmatism
in Poland was E. M. Kozlowski.
Generally speaking, in Europe this philosophy was one im-
portant strand within the modernist style of thinking, one among
several varieties of a "philosophy of life" that strove for im-
mediate knowledge and "contact with the thing itself," a contact
no metaphysical schemata were expected to provide. On this
score also its empirical alertness, pedantic nominalism, and its
ostracism of metaphysical dogma-in short, all that relates prag-
matism to the positivist tradition-falls within the modernist
current. The founders of pragmatism themselves pointed ont
their affinities with the main positivist tradition, and this claim
has a real foundation. At the same time, this branch of positivism
has its paradoxical side because it enables empiricism to accept
metaphysics and religious faith, as well as to apply the same
criteria to value judgments as are applied to scientific judgments.
This paradox is one of countless arguments a historian of philos-
ophy may adduce to illustrate the fact that philosophical as-
sumptions admit of the most various interpretations, that there
is no limit to the combinations of possible ideas in this field.
The late nineteenth-century 01' modernist variety of positivism
was characterized by the deliberate linking of genetic and meth-
odological questions in studying human cognition. Quaestio iuris
and quaestio facti in respect of the value of knowledge became
almost indistinguishable. If cognition is a specifically human
instrument of biological adaptation, it may well seem that mean-
ingful qnestions concerning the validity of cognitive procednres
refer only to whether they are useful to us, not to whether
they enable ns to know the world "in itself" (for such a
purpose is not present in the animal world to which we belong,
and from which we differ in respeet to forms of communication,
not because we have any ties with a transcendental truth).
If this is so, pragmatism would be an attempt to draw the
ultimate epistemological conseqnenees from naturalism, and it
would indeed be impossible to separate the quaestio iuris from
the question of the origin of knowledge. But by the same token
it becomes impossible to uphold the scientistic position, i.e., the
injunction to refrain from statements unless they meet the re-
quirements of natural seience; in other words, the prohibition
on ascribing meaning to such statements is no longer jnstified.
One may thns be tempted to see a certain logic in the
emergence of the next of positivist tbought, whose dis-
tinctive feature is that it draws a clear line separating questlOns
about the origin of knowledge from questions about Its
and attempts to deal with the .... neglecting
tl1eformer-in other words, a return to POSItIon.
'.
PRAGMATISM A."1D POSITIVISM
173
So-called logical empiricism (occasionally known as "neo-posi-
tivism") might in this view be regarded as a return to positivist
restraint after the disintegration of positivism in the "modernist"
period; it would then be the philosophical expression of the
end of a period of extreme epistemological license. Many rep-
resentatives of this doctrine hoped that the limitations it im-
posed on thought wonld counteract the threat of ideological
fanaticism; theirs is the attitude of independent intellectuals
anxious to cont.ribute to social health. Scientisrn ,vas one iln-
portant component in this program.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Logical Empiricism: A Scientistic Defense
of TbTeatened Civilization
r. The SOW"ces of logical e1l1jJiricis1I1. How it defines itself.
In respect to content, logical empiricism or logical positivism falls
within the over-all development usually designated analytical
philosophy. The last-mentioned term denotes not only the Ox-
ford and Cambridge movement, initiated above all by G. E.
Moore, but a worldwide movement convinced that the proper
task of philosophy is analysis of language, both everyday and
scientific, and the elucidation of concepts, assertions, and con-
troverted points. By this approach, it was hoped, many traditional
questions would at last be settled or dismissed as meaningless.
Initially, the objectives of the analytical school did not imply
any specific approach to epistemological or metaphysical prob-
lems, nor did this school prejudge what philosophical questions
are meaningful. What distinguished it from other schools was
the stress it laid on the idea that philosophy must start with
exact logical analysis of the language in which scientific ques-
tions are formulated. Dislike for grandiose, all-embracing meta-
physical systems is a natural concomitant of this attitude, yet at
the same time this school admitted the most varied positions
on traditional philosophical issues. Thus, Moore and his numer-
ous disciples analyzed the meaning of terms in every field of
knowledge and everyday life, without asking whether their anal-
yses were compatible or incompatible with existing philosophi-
cal theories. What mattered to them was primarily to lay bare
the vague intuitions concealed in our speech, the verbal hybrids
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
175
or murky associations involved in our statements about the world,
and to formulate all scientific and philosophical questions so
they may be understandable and acceptable to all.
Because Moore's ideas were firmly rooted in the tradition of
English empiricism and iucluded positivist elements, they con-
siderably influenced the development of analytical philosophy.
The latter cannot, however, be included as a whole in a history
of positivism, for many of its more prominent representatives
advocated ideas decidedly not positivist in the sense considered
here. Moore himself, in defiance of the positivist tradition, de-
fended the objectivity of valuational predicates (such as "good"
and "bad") in ethics, and held that they are irreducible to
empirical qualities. Bertrand Russell, one of the founders of the
analytical school, who helped forge the logical tools that were
to have such wide use in this ceutury, cannot be regarded as a
positivist, if only for his emphatic rejectiou of nominalism.
Alfred North Whitehead, co-author with Russell of Principia
Mathematica (1910-1913), who began as a mathematician and
went on to create a metaphysics and a distinctly religious
cosmology, was not a positivist by any standard. Nor was one
] an Lukasiewicz, the discoverer of multivalent logics, who also
rejected nominalism and whose philosophical essays are in part
colored by religious convictions.
Thus, although analytical philosophy and logical positivism as
practiced by the younger generation have become well-nigh
indistinguishable, we will not discuss analytical philosophy as a
whole, but concentrate on the positivist tendencies manifested
';ithin it in the period between the two world wars. The posi-
tIVIst current within analytical philosophy exhibits with particu-
lar clarity a feature Bertrand Russell regarded as the very essence
of the latter: namely, it combines empiricism with an extensive
application of mathematical methods. While the same combina-
t i o ~ .has characterized natural science since Galileo, logical em-
pmclsm claims credit for having first realized its importance in
elucidating traditional philosophical questions.
17
6
Until the advent of logical empiricism, we are told, there
had been two rival methods of cognition in philosophy-the
mathematical method of demonstration and the experimental
method of investigation. Depending on tbe importance ascribed
to the one or the other, tbey led to antithetical conceptions of
knowledge: rationalism and empiricism. The logical empiricists
set out to do away with tbis split. They hold that experience is
the only way of iearning anything about the real world. Math-
\ \ :matics, they say, descrihe the w.odd, but it an
mdlspensable techmque of reason1l1g. Formal lOgIC has devel-
oped into a powerful instrument that extends the scope of
empirical science by eliminating many psendo-problems and by
recognizing its inability to solve ontological problems. Neither
IO<ric nor mathematics can discover the strncture of the extra-
li;o-nistic world but both increase the effectiveness of lingnistic
D '
signs and the correcrness of our deductive reasoning. Some prop-
ositions of logic and mathematics are valid independently of
observation or experiment, not because they disclose any im-
manent necessity, bnt because they are analytic propositions.
Devoid of content, they owe their validity to linguistic con-
ventions associated with the meanings ascribed to the terms
. involved in them. There are no such things as synthetic a priori
judgments, i.e., judgments that can be validated independently of
experience and at the same time describe the real world in any
respect whatever. This is one of the main assumptions of logical
elnplf1Clsm.
Philosophy, if it is to exist as an independent discipline along-
side the other branches of knowledge, cannot take the place of
science in any question concerning the structure of the world;
all it can do comes down to logical analysis of the syntactic and
semantic properties of language, especially the language of
science. Philosophy in this sense becomes a discipline dealing
with methods of scientific procedure, such as the testability of
hypotheses, the legitimacy of inferences, and the meaning of
terms used in science. This discipline, sometimes called "meta-
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
177
science," was especially spurred on by scientific developments
earlier in this century, above all those connected with the study
of antinomies in the theory of classes and with the theory of
relativity. These developments showed up the need for revision
of certain modes of thinking and speaking, the detailed lin-
guistic analysis of expressions, for example, which are taken for
granted yet entail material consequences. We cannot here enter
into discussion of these questions. In any case, extremely rapid
advance in symbolic logic seemed to justify the hope that within
a short time it would be possible either to solve all the old
philosophical problems or to dismiss them as incorrectly formu-
lated. Some even imagined that the new logic would be the
characteristica universal;s Leibniz had dreamed of, and that it
would supply an infallible means for solving all meaningful
philosophical problems.
For all the transformations, controversies, and volte-faces that
have marked the history of logical empiricism, the doctrine dis-
closes certain permanent features. First, it regards rationalism as
the opposite of irrationalism, and bence maintains that only those
statements about the world whose content can be controlled by
means accessible to all are entitled to the name of kno\vledge (or
have cognitive value); also that there are legitimate ways of
attaining knowledge of the world other tban those nsed by
natural science and mathematics. Second, it upholds nominalism
both in its theory of knowledge and, more particularly, in its
theory of meaning, theory of matbematical objects, and theory
of values. Third, it maintains an anti-metaphysical attitnde, stem-
ming from the conviction that so-called metaphysical statements
do not meet the requirements of experimental contra! because
they do not deal with specific phenomena falling under specific
classes (rather, with the world "as a whole"), and hence cannot
be disproved by any conceivable method. Fourth it professes
scientism, that is, it asserts the essential unity of the scientific
method, accounting for differences between the sciences on this
score-especially between the socia! and the physical sciences-
/
by the immaturity of the former, though it is believed they will
eventually be modeled on the latter.
All these features of logical empiricism are positivistic. How-
ever, in its early phase, the vitality of the doctrine waS not due
solely to tbe circumstance that its adherents concerned them-
with important scientific problems posed by symbolic
logic, the theory of relativity, and the guantum theory. Accord-
ing to them, this philosophy was to perform important social
functions: to provide a scientific approach to personal convIC-
tions, notably, and thereby help eradicate irrational prejudice,
ideological fanaticism, and the use of brute force in public
affairs. It was not to be just a science, but also to perform an
edncational task in the struggle against irrational beliefs that
poison collective life and give rise to attempts to impose them
by force. The discredit into which nationalist ideologies fell
after the First World War certainly contributed to this attitude
and attracted many intellectuals to this school of thought; what
especially appealed was the idea that ideological claims should
be tested by scientific methods. The positivists of that day liked
to repeat Locke's saying that we may hold any belief only to
the extent it is justified. This slogan, which briefly sums up the
fundamental rule of practical rationalism, was directed against
all ideological pressnres and fostered a spirit of tolerance in
collective life. The positivists, then, championed a scientific at-
titnde to the world in defense of democracy, tolerance, and co-
operation. They professed a kind of utopianism, based on the
assumption that the attitude of the intellectual whose convic-
tions are more or less detetmined by strict scientific thinking
could become the socially dominant way of thinking, and that
this attitude could serve as a model for society as a whole, once
education had been imbned with this spirit.
Although it makes much more nse of logical instruments and
syntactic analysis, logical positivism has a certain community of
aims with Mach's doctrine. A real continnity of persons and
institutions further justifies regarding this movement as an out-
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
179
growth of empiriocriticism. From the outset, logical empir-
icism was very aware of itself as an original "school." Its ad-
herents shared a certain number of basic assnmptions and were
prompt to attack opposing points of view. Its langnage was
brutally aggressive, its style apodictic in a sectarian way>
and its conviction that it was the history of
thought beyond question. Nothing conld shake the early logical
empiricists' faith in the greatness of their cnltnral mission.
The most active early center was Vienna in the 1920S, espe-
cially the gronp of philosophizing scientists and mathematicians
who came together in a seminar condncted by Moritz Schlick
(1882-1936). The most prominent members of this group,
known as the Vienna Circle, were Rudolf Carnap (b. 1891, now
in the U.S.), and Karl Popper (b. 1902, now in England). Some
philosophers of a related tendency were active in Berlin: Hans
Reichenbach, Richard von Mises, M. Dnbislav. In Denmark,
Sweden, and England other gronps and individnals appeared,
some independent of the Vienna Circle, some not. Poland was a
very active center of logical empiricism, where a group of K.
Twardowski's pnpils, thongh rather nnlike in philosophical dis-
position, analyzed many qnestions in a spirit akin to that of the
Vienna Circle.
2. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Enormonsly important in the philo-
sophical articnlation of logical empiricism was Lndwig Wittgen-
stein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus, published in German and
English in 1922. Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who had been born
into a Jewish family in Austria, was first an engineer, became a
mathematician, then worked on the foundations of mathematics
and logic, and finally devoted himself to philosophy. In the years
preceding the First World War he studied under Bertrand Rus-
sell at Cambridge, and his first book (the only one published
in his lifetime) was largely inspired by Frege and Russell. His
posthnmous Pbilosophical Investigations (1953) has a very dif-
ferent character, and it is obvious that the author of the Tracta-
tus had abandoned many of his former ideas. These two works
have had very great influence-the former primarily on the
development of logical empiricism, the latter on linguistic philos-
ophy. This fact, however, does not justify situating Wittgen-
stein's thonght in either of these two currents, the less so be-
cause he rejected the logical empiricist interpretation of his own
philosophy. We shall, then, omit any full account of his complex
and controversial philosophy, which, as a whole, falls altogether
outside the boundaries of positivism, and call attention merely
to a few points that the founders of logical empiricism regarded
as related to their own ideas.
To Vlittgenstein in the period of the Tractatus, the reality
of sense perception consists of individual facts, and the mean-
ing of any knowledge is reducible to descriptions of such facts,
these descriptions being structural correspondents ("images") of
them. The meaning or truth of every proposition is wholly de-
termined by the individual statements that make it up, the sum
total of which is equivalent to its meaning. There is no such
thing as a priori knowledge, whether of facts or things, and
bence logic-which is a science independent of empirical verifi-
cation-consists of tautologies devoid of content. Logical positiv-
ism took over this division of all possible knowledge into two
flasses (tautologies and statements of fact), a division that rules
out the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. Language and
thought refer only to elementary, "atomic" facts. We undet-
stand only what we can express, hence there is no thought
that cannot be expressed, and there are no questions that cannot
be solved, for it would not be possible to formulate meaningfully
any such question. In this sense, according to the famous apho-
rism in the T ractaws, the limit, of my langnage are the limits
of my world. And since the atomic facts are always contin-
gent, i.e., the descriptions they consist of contain no features
compelling us to assert them by virtue of a logical rule, our
lmowledue of the world involves no necessity. The conse-
b
quellccs of these restrictions in reference to metaphysical ques-
tions are obvious. We can ask whether a given fact belongs to
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
our world of experience, bnt we cannot ask meaningful ques-
tions concerning the characteristics of the world as a whole.
Thus, it is meaningless to ask whether reality has a material
nature, because it could be answered only on the basis of a spe-
cific experience of "materiality" as distinct from one of H no11_
materiality." As such an experience is inconceivable, the prob-
lem of realism cannot be rationally formulated. Radical denial
of the meaningfulness of guestions concerning the world "as
a whole" led Wittgenstein to the conviction that even statements
of the type "The world coutains at least three objects" are
meaningless. On the basis of the data that experience supplies,
the difference between realism and solipsism not only cannot
be defined, it cannot be formulated in words. Incidentally Witt-
genstein believes-in this he is very nearly alone-that what
solipsism asserts is right, but that it cannot be expressed. To
express it, a categoIY such as the "I" would have to be in-
voked, and there is no such thing among the atomic facts: on
close scrutiny the "1" shrinks to the size of a dot. The so-called
"subject" is ungraspable, not just as an alleged "inside" of things
different from them, but even as an "inner-world" object. Within
the bonndaries of experience I can speak about "myself" ill ref-
erence to individnal facts, but when I try to go beyond their
contents to ask about some indivisible "core" or permanent sub-
stratum of subjectivity unifying those data in an identical self,
my questions become as meaningless as any other metaphysical
question.
Language, moreover, which reproduces the structure of ex-
periential facts in its statements, discloses (but does not express)
something that hasically admits of no description. "What we
cannot speak of we must be silent about," says the last apho-
rism in the Tractatus. Language is helpful since it can articulate
knowledge of its own limits-on this score, linguistic tools have
roughly the status of "reason" in Pascal's intellectualist view
of the world-but this self-knowledge, so to speak, is an auto-
matic contact with the ineffable, with that which will never be-
come an object of lmowledge (however important it may be in
life). If it is to be a serious activity, philosophy cannot hope
to play the part of theory; it is a variety of hnman behavior
aiming at the clarification of scientific statements. (The latter
observation was taken over by Schlick, according to whom
philosophy's task is to clarify meanings, but the ultimate mean-
ings of words can only be pointed to, not expressed in words-
the contents are inexpressible-and hence philosophy is not a
sum of asserrions, still less a "system," but a type of behavior
that results in clarity of statement.)
In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein considerably
reduces the reqnirements that meaningful statements have to
meet, and in effect recognizes that all expressions containing
words whose use is subjected to specific rules are meaningful;
as for unequivocal definitions, he treats them as a basically
utopian ideal. Because of the looseness of the rules of meaning-
fulness expounded in this work, it has been invoked by writers
more concerned with how language functions than with specify-
ing its components for scientific purposes, and they have deuied
the usefulness of assigning unequivocal meanings to current
words. Also, certain theologians find the new approach to mean-
ingfulness helpful in validating questions within their sphere.
This later phase of Wittgenstein's thought is even less closely
related to positivism than the earlier one.
On the other hand, the Tractatus was an important conn'ibu-
tion to the new positivist program in radical respects. First, it
reduced all meaningful non-analytic statements to descriptions of
elementary facts. Second-a consequence of the preceding-it
proposed a nominalist interpretation of scientific knowledge:
every scientific theory is a function of individual statements de-
scrihing the facts on which it is based. Third-another conse-
quence of the first assumption-it dismissed metaphysics as
meaningless, not only in respect to its assertions, but also in
respect to its questions; at the same time, it neutralized the
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
concept of experience in the same sense as Avenarius. Fourth, it
limited philosophy to the logical analysis of scientific language.
3 Scientific statements and metaphysics. Logical empiricism
proper was not always so radical on the score of meaningfulness,
especially not in connection with language. Carnap, basing him-
self on the theory of types, distinguished between different
linguistic levels and, treating philosophy as a language that speaks
about language, defined its task as that of investigating the con-
ditions under which scientific language is syntactically correct
as well as meaningful. Many logical empiricists at first identified
meaningfulness with verifiability, i.e., they held that the con-
ditions of meaningfulness are met only by those propositions in
reference to which it is possible to state by what intersubjective
methods they can be verified. This is concisely expressed in the
well-known fonnula, "The meaning of a statement is the method
of its verification," a formula directed not just against meta-
physical systems, but against virtually all traditional philosophy.
On closer examination, however, this rule involves difficulties.
Obviously, it cannot refer to actual verification, i.e., does not
assert that a statement is meaningful only when we have carried
out tests establishing its logical validity, for in this case the same
expression could turn from nonsense to meaningfnl statement
overnight, with improvements in experimental technique. So the
rule was restated: what it refers to is not actual verineation, but
"basic" Of "theoretical," rather than "technical" verifiability. Yet
here, too, closer scrutiny reveals difficulties. First, at what point
may the process of verincation be regarded as completed, what
kind of cognitive acts require no further justification-can be
taken as definitive? Next, the nco-positivists began to look for an
absolute epistemological starting point, undertaking to solve in
their own way a problem with which philosophy had struggled
for centuries. So arose the problem of "first statements," abso-
lutely initial cognitive acts at the level of linguistic articulation.
These were supposed to be "basic" or "protocol" sentences, i.e.,
descriptive of actual sense perceptions "with nothing added."
The proper meaning of such sentences, questions of their value
and possibility, gave rise to a long debate into which we cannot
go here. At one point, certain participants in this debate
(Neurath, Carnap) could not avoid the conclusion that "basic"
sentences are direct descriptions of the observer's own experi-
ence and hence introspective. Strictly speaking, then, they can-
not be ascribed objective meaning: if meaningfulness is to be
defined by the (more or less loosely conceived) logical reducti-
bility of sentences to observational notations, a purely psycho-
logical interpretation of knowledge appears unavoidable. Other
participants in the debate tried to show that "basic" sentences
could he treated as accounts of physical observations, referring
to the directly observable behavior of physical objects (without
prejudging the latters' ontological status). Karl Popper went so
far as to defend the thesis that hasic sentences are scientific con-
ventions, that is, arbitrary assumptions necessary to avoid infinite
regress in scientific demonstration. Others pointed out that abso-
lutely basic sentences do not figure in scientific theories, and,
like the conventionalists, spoke in favor of the thesis of the
circular verifiability of theories. This doctrine amounted in effect
to abandoning the empiricist position, for it presupposes that
science never deals with elementary facts, so contains no abso-
lutely basic sentences, and that the ultimate criterion for validat-
ing a hypothesis or accepting a given theory is the logical co-
herence of the existing system of senteuccs.
Another point at issue was the character of the logical relation
that must obtain between actual scientific propositions and the
"basic" sentences, if the former are to be regarded as properly
verifiable, i.e., as meaningful statements. What, then, is verifi-
ability? The rule identifying a statement's verifiability with the
possibility of logically inferring from it a finite collection of
"protocol" sentences was soon abandoned, for it hecame clear
that in this sense the majority of scientific propositions would
he unverifiahle, hence meaningless. Next, the rule was reformu-
lated as follows: those statements are verifiable that can serve as
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
premises of "protocol" sentences, i.e., those from which we can
infer predictions as to the observable behavior of physical ob-
jects. Then it turns out that the same "protocol" sentences can
be inferred from several scientific propositions, and also, for
instance, from a logical conjunction in which, next to a scientific
proposition, we have a metaphysical proposition, even one that
flagrantly violates the rules of meaningfulness. Consequently,
this definition of verifiability would permit us to ascribe verifi-
ability to arbitrary statements, and would not serve our purpose.
This difficulty gave rise to various attempts to limit the defini-
tion and to formulate a concept of partial verifiability, such as
might avoid these nndesirable consequences.
In the course of these discussions Popper advanced an idea
that, though not novel in the history of modern science, was
now formulated in all its generality with great clarity. This idea
was that the criterion of the empirical character of statements
(and hence of their meaningfulness) should be their " d e ~ i
bility," that is, the possibility of disproving them: only those
"Statements are to be regarded as empirically founded that let
us infer by what empirical methods they might be disproved.
In other words, if we cannot say how our present world differs \
empirically from a world in which the given statement would
be false, the statement is meaningless. If every conceivahle fact
confirms a theory, the theory is obviously non-empirical. We
readily see that such a view dismisses all metaphysical doctrines
and religious beliefs as meaningless. When we ask how we can
refute the assertion that God is mercifnl, we discover at once
that there is no conceivahle way of doing so: every fact can
easily be reconciled with God's mercifulness, and no fact con-
clusively contradicts it. According to Popper, this rule is of
primary importance in scientific thinking and alters, as it were,
the entire conditions of the pursuit of knowledge. It encourages
the scientist to reflect on possible ways of disproving his own
hypothesis, not just to look for facts that confirm it. It also urges
him to eschew theories that every conceivable fact confirms.
According to the positivists, there is no lack of such theories in
contemporary science. Some have criticized Freud's doctrine
on this ground: it can assimilate every new fact, and so is
utterly insensitive to facts contradicting it-in other words, it is
non-empirical in the sense discnssed here. Ent it was soon pointed
out that Popper's principle raises another difficulty: existential
propositions, i.e., those that assert the existence of an object
are obvionsly "undefeasible" in his sense, hence non-empirical.
(We cannot addnce an observational sentence to refute the
statement "There is the sun
ll
or "Elves and fairies exist," a1-
thongh such statements are exclnded by other logical rnles.) A
number of further attempts were made to state the rules of
verifiability with greater precision, and discussion of these mat-
ters has by no means ended. Reichenbach has pointed out that it
is necessary to refer to degrees of probability in defining the
rules of verifiability. According to him, Hume long ago showed
that a radical empiricist cannot make use of induction without
inconsistency, for we have no way of validating indnction. To
validate it inductively is to beg the question, and if the principle
of induction is a synthetic judgment a priori, radical empiricism
becomes untenable. Moreover, if induction is rnled out, all
knowledge turns out to be impossible. Therefore we must recog-
nize that we are entitled to predict events that never occurred
on the basis of past events, bnt that assertions concerning the
fntnre do not have the same degree of certainty as statements
concerning the past. However, this view creates new difficnlties,
and, as we said above, the whole problem is still nnder discnssion.
Apart from these varions solutions to the problem of verifia-
bility, and apart from the continuing discussion, logical empiri-
cism has been searching for ways to eradicate metaphysical
judgments from human thonght. In the light of empiricist criti-
cism, statements such as "God is Three Persons in One," "The
world is material," "The ground of existence is will," or "The
universal is contained in the particular," are not necessarily false,
bnt simply are not statements, have no meaning that permits
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
inqniry into their trnth or falsity. Following Wittgenstein, the
logical empiricists have held this thesis as one of the fundamental
assumptions of their doctrine. All statements asserting something
about the world "as a whole," all epistemological and ontological
theories (whether realist, materialist, or snbjectivist), all doc-
trines containing general statements about, say, nniversal deter-
minism or the fundamental snbject-object relation-all are
meaningless, no one of them one whit "trner" than its negation.
The philosophical-or perhaps anti-philosophical-revolution
that the logical empiricists claim to have brought about has
consisted above all in this eliminating of psendo-questions,
thoughts abont nothing at all. This is allegedly the most impor-
tant accomplishment of their critique, wbich has shown (among
mnch else) that very nearly the whole of earlier philosophy is
made up of meaningless solutions to pseudo-problems. Carnap
made a detailed analysis of Heidegger's statement, "Nothing
nihilates," in order to show that it is purely verbal, devoid of
empirical meaning. (Incidentally, this is the only sentence from
existentialist philosophy the majority of contemporary posi-
tivists appear familiar with.) Indeed, most representatives of tins
school are much stronger on logical studies than on historical
studies; they have a low opinion of the results of previons
philosophical thinking and are persuaded tbat the only valnable
elements in philosophy are those that can be built np in the
same way as the resnlts of natural science. Since all knowledge
comes down to empirical statements and tantologies, philosophy
has no tasks of its own apart from the logical analysis of
langnage. Logic is not a collection of the laws of thought in
any psychological sense, but of rules of lingnistic nsage that are
true (or binding, rather) by virtue of lingnistic convention. In
themselves, they are devoid of content: they tell ns how to
make use of symbols, have no object in view of their own. The
logical empiricists have directed their criticism both against the
Platonizing interpretation of mathematics and against psycholog-
ical or associational theories; the majority have preferred
formalist conceptions of mathematics. Those who (like Reichen-
bach) ascribe an objective character to some parts of mathemat-
ics do so only in the sense earlier accepted by Mach: geometry,
as a paft of mathematics, consists of analytic judgments, but
there is also a geometry that may be regarded as paft of
physics. The latter consists of judgments that have to be
validated with the help of observation and measurement. Neither
the latter nor the former, however, contains synthetic a priori
judgments.
According to the neo-positivists, all earlier contribntions to
philosophy break down into problems that are purely verbal,
hence meaningless, and problems solvable through meticulous
analysis of the linguistic means used in formulating them. Hence
all the investigations into the syntax, later into the semantic
aspects of philosophical language. Logical empiricists were
prominent among those who welcomed semantics enthusiasti-
cally as a panacea for the ills, not just of intellectual culture,
but of human life in general. The promise semantics held out
of doing away with doctrinal quarrels and antagonisms appealed
to them, for they shared the conviction that these arise out
of faulty use of language and that immense quantities of human
energy are squandered in this way. Some philosophers of this
school have held that metaphysical statements, though devoid of
meaning, can perform expressive functions, may serve as outlet
for certain emotions. They are to be tolerated so long as they
claim no more ambitions statns, so long as those who make such
statements do not imagine they are saying something about the
world, or that their particular point of view can meaningfully
be defended against other points of view.
4. The "physicizing" of science. The rule that defines the
meaningfulness of sentences by the possibility of reducing
them to contents referring to the physical behavior of bodies
implies that all scientific propositions must-if they are to be
valid-be translatable into the language of physics. This view,
sometimes referred to as the "physicizing" part of the program,
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
was very popular with the founders of logical positivism. The
language of physics was held to be universal, and only state-
ments formulated in this language, or statements that Can be
translated into it, were regarded as meaningful. However, in
actual scientific practice this rule proved very difficult to observe
consistently. In psychology it led to behaviorism, which in the
opinion of this school is the only scientific psychology. The
older introspective psychology is dismissed as a tissue of irre-
sponsible fantasies concerning the "sonl" and "spiritnal" facul-
ties. Behaviorism denies that psychological statements have any
sense more or less than other statements about observable modes
of hmnan behavior; in particular) statements about "inner" ex-
periences are devoid of scientific meaning if they refer to
something other than behavior (or an expression of feeling). In
keeping with the most persistent phenomenalist tradition, positiv-
ism recognized a natnra! ally in behaviorist psychology, for it
dispenses with the nnobservable, mysterious category of "con-
sciousness" or "subjectivity." It is currently believed, for in-
stance, that intelligence is a certain "property" of individuals,
"expressed" in or knowable by means of tests. From the point of
view of logical empiricism (also behaviori,,: psychology), in-
telligence is not an "occult" quality that "manifests" itself in test
procedures: intelligence is precisely that which is studied by
means of these procedures. The other definition tacitly assumes
a non-scientific distinction between essence and appearance
which is snpposedly a manifestation of the essence. Science
cannot operate meaningfully with statements that refer to some
reality other than the qualities accessible to observation.
Critics of the behaviorist interpretation have pointed out that
it fails to carry out the "physicizing" program: it translates
psychological statements into everyday language, not into the
language of physics. The fact that positivists approve of be-
haviorism suggests that for all their claims that their purpose is
to free psychology of metaphysical prejudices and give it a
scientific fonndation, they actually rely on the deceptive in-
telligibility of everyday langnage.
5. The humanities and the wotld of values. The "physicizing"
program, despite its apparent simplicity, was soon found to
involve great difficulties, especially in the fields of the social
and historical sciences. When we try to translate the simplest
terms nsed in the latter into the language of physics, their
meanings turn out, more often than not, to be remote from
current usage. According to the positivists, this shows that their
previous usage had been faulty, bound up with "smuggled-in"
metaphysical fictions. According to critics, however, nothing
proves the humanistic meanings to be less "intelligible" than
the physicizing translations. Terms such as "property," "author-
ity," "binding law," etc. cannot be physicized without changing
their meaning. The fact is, when they have been practiced in
accordance with the positivist rules, the humane sciences have
not managed to get beyond generalities.
Neurath attempted to draw up rules for an empirical sociol-
ogy, to meet the requirements fornmlated by logical positivism.
His project was based on the assumption that there are no
differences in cognitive methods between the natural and the
social sciences, especially no differences of the type claimed by
the Dilthey school. According to Neurath, the social sciences do
not deal with human intentions, experiences, aspirations, or
"personalities," but solely with the behavior of human organisms.
These sciences can and should discard such concepts as "con-
sciousness" and its various derivatives, study observable regulari-
ties of human behavior, and ascertain measnrahle relationships
within the various dimensions of this behavior. If we would once
learn how to record invariable patterns of behavior and to
discover the conditions governing their emergence, spread, and
decline, we should be able to predict social phenomena no less
effectively than natoral phenomena. Humanists, however, brand
the program a pipe dream, pointing to the fact that the social
sciences often deal with wholes, the behavior of which cannot
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
possibly be deduced from physical laws. A great many sociologi-
cal techniques have been developed for ascertaining relationships
between human behavior patterns and the conditions of their
occurrence, and positivist-minded sociologists have made con-
siderable contributions along this line, but such techniques have
still to snpplant theoretical reflection on social life. Although
positivists condemn snch theoretical reflection as non-scientific,
without it no verifiable social problems could so mnch as be
formulated. At any rate, social phenomena are predictable only
within very narrow limits, a fact that scarcely holds out very
encouraging prospects for subjecting sociology to the positivist
rules of knowledge.
Another target of positivist criticism has been the histori-
osophic systems. Karl Popper's two books, The Open Society
and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1957),
constitote an all-out attack on "historicism," which in Popper's
usage denotes an approach to social phenomena that defines the
main task of the relevant sciences as historical prediction based
on the discovery of historical laws, structllre, rhythms, etc.
According to him, historical prediction is impossible, at least
insofar as the conrse of history depends on the progress of
knowledge (for if scientific discoveries were predictable, their
contents would have to be known at the moment they were
predicted). In particular, Popper criticizes "holistic" interpreta-
tions of social phenomena as "manifestations" of global structores
irreducible to their constituent parts. Such interpretations,
characteristic of Hegel and Marx, are associated with techniques
of social action intended to bring about global revolutionary
npheavals (holistic or utopian techniques) rather than real ad-
vances achievable by gradual, step-by-step reforms. An authentic
holistic technique is impossible, for a "totality" -a sum of
social features and relations-cannot be studied scientifically;
science has to be selective, cannot produce a "holistic" his-
toriography. According to Popper, historiosophic systems are
both cognitively unproductive (because they deal with objects
that cannot be studied scientifically) and socially harmful (be-
cause they serve to justify totalitarian utopias).
As can be seen, the attitude of logical empiricism toward the
social and historical sciences underwent one essential change
between Neurath's EmpiTical Sociology and Popper's Poverty
of Historicism. Hopes for an efficient technique of predicting
social phenomena gave way to pessimistic fear of the conse-
quences of alleged predictions, while real prediction came to be
regarded as impossible. On the whole the empirical approach to
social phenomena still remains in force, but fully positivist social
science has not got beyond the programmatic stage-apart from
numerous studies of the language of the social sciences. Some
of these are valuable because they cast light on methods used
in those sciences, bur none represents an actual carrying out of
the positivist program for the social sciences.
The consequences of empiricism in axiology, more particu-
larly in ethics, are obvious and have often been asserted by
champions of this doctrine. Experience does not disclose the
existence of a world of values or valuational qnalities that could
serve as an empirical foundation for value jndgments. Conse-
quently, the latter, being neither empirical nor tautological, are
meaningless. Moore's thesis that moral predicates qualifying
human behavior, though differing from descriptive predicates,
are apprehended intuitively and are no less self-evident than
sense perception was rejected by the neo-positivists. This school
recognized Moore's distinction but denied the existence of a
cognitive faculty specifically related to values. Valuations are
neither true nor false, may at most be regarded as expressions
of certain psychological states, may tnrn out to be meaningless
exclamations. Despite the Socratic tradition, the so-called knowl-
edge of values is not knowledge in any sense, and hence cannot
be the object of controversy nor supply matter for rationally
formulated questions. It is possible in ethics to argue rationally
about whether given conclusions follow from given premises.
Nothing prevents us from recognizing, for instance, that in-
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
193
ferences can be drawn from normative statements: the statement
that one ought not to tell lies implies that one ou ght not to
praise a bad poem, even though written by a friend. It is also
possible to look for empirical premises in order to prove or
disprove that a situation described in a normative statement
actually occurs in a given case. (For instance, we may ask
whether corporal punishment in educational connections merely
canses unnecessary pain or produces beneficial effects.) But it is
impossible to argae rationally about whether something is a
value or not-a non-instrumental, autonomous value, that is,
something more than a means to an end. Ultimate valuational
assumptions can only be arbitrary. Needless to say, a scientific
sociology of manners and cnstoms, a history of ethical theories,
and a psychology of morals are all perfectly possible, but not
a scientific normative ethics. No science can tell us how we
onght to behave, only what means will achieve a given end, and
no science can define those ends, sanction anything as "good,"
condemn anything as "evil." Science is nentral in relation to the
world of values, and this neutrality is basic, has nothing to do
with the given stage of scientific development. Like metaphysi-
cal qnestions, questions referring to valnes are pseudo-qnestions.
6. Logical empiricism in Poland. We mentioned above that
logical empiricism played an important part ill Polish philosophy
in the period between the two world wars. Polish logical positiv-
ism or, as Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz called it, "logistic anti-
rationalism," developed to a great extent independently of the
Vienna Circle, thongh it had many contacts with it. The Polish
positivist tradition goes back to some late eighteenth-century
anti-Kantians. It gave rise to an important intellectnal movement
in the last decades of the nineteenth century, but this movement
played no essential part in the development of the Polish version
of logical empiricism. The first generation of modern logicians
mostly inclnded pnpils of Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938)
who, though not a positivist himself, trained and encouraged
them in detailed analysis of philosophical language. Jan
194
Lukasiewicz's work, in turn, helped to arouse interest in sym-
bolic logic. At an early date Poland became one of the most
active centers of modern logical inquiry and has held this
position to this day.
Among the pupils of Twardowski and founders of the so-
called Lwow-vVarsaw school, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz was per-
haps the most closely related to Vienna Circle tendencies. His
purpose was to formulate a semantic version of various epis-
temological problems, such that these could be analyzed by
logical means. His own view, which he defined as radical con-
ventionalism, was based on the conviction that sentences that
express our image of the world are determined by the con-
ceptual apparatus used in formulating them. A conceptual ap-
paratus is a language that in addition to a vocabulary and
syntactic rules is defined by deductive, axiomatic, and empirical
semantic rules. Such a language is "closed," that is, cannot be
enriched without changing the meauing of all existing ex-
pressions; it is also cohesive; has no isolated parts, and all its
expressions can be linked together in meaningful wboles. Two
closed, cohesive languages contain reciprocally translatahle ex-
pressions only if they are accurate copies of each other in every
respect. If even one single expression in one language has no
equivalent in the other, the two langnages are totally un-
translatable. Now, since our choice of conceptual apparatus is
arbitrary, all statements (including empirical ones) that we are
obliged to assert on the basis of one given apparatus can be
rejected-recognized as meaningless on the basis of a different
apparatus. In other words, no "facts" have a cognitively binding
character in the sense of forcing us to assert or deny any
statement, since onr image of the world is always determined
by the language in which it is formulated. When we operate
with one language, we have no way of asserting or denying
statements expressed in another language. Later Ajdnkiewicz
abandoned this interpretation, having realized that the conditions
imposed on closed, cohesive langnoges cannot actnolly be met
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
195
even by the artificial languages of the dednctive sciences. He
retained, however, the view characteristic of logical empiricism
that the proper way to solve philosophical prohlems is to give
them the form of semantic qnestions, which enables ns to
determine what is meaningful in their content.
Tadeusz Kotarbinski (h. 1886) can he regarded as really
belonging to this school only with reservations. Like the logical
empiricists, he is a radical nominalist in all domains of thought
and believes that the social and historical sciences, too, can he
pursued without "hypostases," i.e., in such a way that all their
statements are reducible to statements about things-the only
entities to which the term "existence" can be properly applied.
Kotarbinski is also related to the positivists by his conviction of
the value of modern logical instrnments in settling epistemologi-
cal questions, and by his over-all empiricist orientation. But his
ureism," i.e., the view according to which every meaningful
statement is a statement abont physical bodies, seems to go
beyond the ontological nentrality characteristic of the positivists.
The Lwow-Warsaw school played an important part in the
history of modern positivism thanks to Jan Lukasiewicz, creator
of multivalent logics, and Alfred Tarski (b. 1901), who in a way
validated the semantic conception of trnth and went beyond the
pnrely syntactic approach to language. The majority of the
philosophers belonging to this group are characterized by 0
considerably less extreme formnlation of the positivist stand-
point than that of the Vienna Circle. The second generation of
this school was as a rule less concerned with formulating over-
all programs and pursued detailed investigations in the fields of
logic and the methodology of science; they are only partly
dependent on the positivist view, bnt broadly related by their
spirit of restraint, distrust of metaphysical solutions, and con-
viction as to the importance of lingnistic analysis.
7. Operational methodology. In the United States, where some
of the founders of the Vienna Circle emigrated in the Hitler
period, the influence of this philosophical style combined with
the pragmatist tradition, now shorn of its more paradoxical
implications. Still earlier the influence of both currents can be
discerned in the so-called "operational" methodology of science.
P. W. Bridgman, author of The Logic of Modern Physics
( I 92 7 ), attempted to develop and apply to the methodology of
the physical sciences the neo-positivist formula: the meaning of
a sentence is the method by which it is verified. According to
him, the meaning of a word is determined hy the set of
operations intended to ascertain whether the word in question
refers to the given thing; the meaning of a sentence is redncible
to the totality of the verifying operations. (This does not apply
to "formal" propositions, i.e., to the tantologies of the deductive
sciences, which are signs arranged according to syntactic rules.)
This view implies, in the spirit of pragmatism, that truth is not
independent of the operations by which it is ascertained. No
statement can be ascribed the "characteristic" of truth without
reference to the verifying operations. Physical magnitude is
defined by the set of measuring operations, physical number
by the operation of counting. But since the verifying operations
may produce different results, varying with the given state of
knowledge, the same statement may be trne or false, depending
on the cognitive situation and the nature of the verifying
operations. Operationalism was criticized on a number of scores,
including the inconvenience of its consequences. For instance,
one and the same magnitude or characteristic studied by different
methods of inspection and measurement cannot be regarded as
identical (since it is defined solely by these operations), and
hence, for example, we are not entitled to say that we are dealing
with the same characteristic when we test intelligence by two
different methods, nor that we are dealing with the same magni-
tude when we use two different metbods of measurement to
compute astronomical distances. Moreover this view implies
that scientific assertions refer, strictly speaking, to our ex-
perimental operations, not to the things supposed to be the
objects of the experiment. However, operationalism raised one
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
197
important methodological problem which has proved important
to several sciences: What conditions have to be fulfilled in order
"
to make sure that applying different methods does not alter the
object investigated? Or, on what basis do we assert that we are
dealing with the same object, when we use different methods to
investigate it? In all the historical sciences, and also in experi-
mental psychology, this question turns up and it cannot always
be easily answered. Operationalism also tackled other questions
connected with the extent to which an object of empirical study
is dependent on the instruments used. On this score, the partisans
of this view benefited from older conventionalist analyses, which
had shown that science contains no "elementary" sentenceS
1
and
that scientific theories are not based merely on collections of
facts, but that the truth of scientific statements depends on the
coherence of the system to which they belong and, more im-
portantly, that a given set of facts may be accounted for by two
incompatible interpretations, between which it is impossible to
choose on the basis of experiment.
Another attempt inspired by both logical empiricism and
pragmatism is Charles \,y. Morris's theory of signs. This theory
is characterized by an empiricist approach and the use of
symbolic logic; it draws epistemological conseqnences from the
practical, utilitarian function of signs in interhnman commu-
nication. In addition to its syntactic and semantic aspects, the
pragmatic aspect of language-i.e., its expressive instrumental
functions-must be the object of philosophical analysis within
the domain of so-called meta-science. These investigations deal
with specific extra-intellectual situations involving the use of
scientific symbols, and include institutional situations important
in the social life of science. Logical analysis of the legitimacy of
scientific procedures and existing theoretical structures does not
of itself adequately account for the cognitive situation in which
scientific thinking takes place. Thus, Morris attempted to rein-
troduce the genetic approach into epistemology, an approach
that the positivist program had ruled out.
8. Ideological aspects. Logical empiricism has played a very
great role in the inteUecmal culture of our day but has failed to
attain the aims that mattered most to it. While the positivists
were proclaiming the end "once and for all" of unverifiable
metaphysical systems and speculative philosophy in general, new
doctrines in flagrant contradiction to these ideals have spruug up
one after the other. Positivists see no more in this development
than evidence of humau smpidity, not any reflection on them-
selves. They are not seriously interested in finding out why the
social results of their work are so insignificant, nor why people
continue to ask questions that science cannot answer. At all
events it is doubtful, in the light of experience, that mankind is
about to give universal recognition to the kind of rationalism
championed by the positivists.
For all that, the positivist critique of metaphysics has not
been entirely fruitless. Under its influence, most people have
come to believe that any and every effort to transform epistemo-
logical or ontological assumptions into scientific assertions in the
sense ascribed to statements of experimental or dednctive science
is doomed to failure. Positivism has contribnted a great deal to a
change in philosophy's assessment of its own cognitive stams.
Those who pursue investigations in the fields of ontology,
theoretical epistemology, historiography, and anthropology tend
to an ever increasing extent to believe that their work is in-
separable from interpretations reflecting the pressure of valua-
tional attitudes and opinions. In other words, there is monnting
awareness that philosophy is not in the same epistemological
simation as science, that it cannot lay claim to scientific, tech-
nologically applicable, empirically verifiable knowledge, but that
it aims at a more meaningful image of the world-in the
humanistic, not the semantic sense of "meaningful." This applies
not only to ontological and epistemological reflection, but to the
historical or humanistic disciplines, which the positivists lump
together with metaphysics.
Today we are witnessing the gradual decline of logical
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
199
empiricism as a distinct philosophical school. Its adherents, in
conformity with their own program, most often direct their
interest to particular diSciplines, mainly logic and methodology,
and to qnestions that have been largely nentralized philosophi-
cally. The area of problems connected with the testability of
hypotheses, the legitimacy of induction, the empirical meaning
of scientific terms, etc., has clearly continued to inspire re-
flection and controversy. However, these preoccupations do not
constitute a distinct philosophical (or anti-philosophical)
"school"-they have simply become a universally recognized
discipline that can to some extent be practiced independently
of one's philosophical preferences. Symbolic logic has almost
entirely emancipated itself from the neo-positivist cognitive
program, and is practiced even by men who profess metaphysi-
cal beliefs. Nor, for instance, does the dispute between formal
and psychological theories of meaning involve doctrinal commit-
ment to logical empiricism. The influence of philosophical atti-
tudes upon scientific work in logic or semantics is not essentially
different from their inflnence on other, older branches of knowl-
edge. Use of rules of verifiability in empirical sociology is no
more linked with positivism than is use of snch rules in any other
field of knowledge, though there also exists a positivist ap-
proach to sociology, which is logically independent of empirical
investigation and programmatically rules out any theory that
cannot meet the rigorous requirements of experimental science.
It is not within our competence to answer the question
whether and to what extent logical empiricists have influenced
the actnal development of science. Be that as it may, their
reBections on methodology were never opposed until attempts
were made to proclaim logical empiricism the only kind of
philosophy worth serious attention.
The assumptions d logical empiricism have been criticized
from the most various points of view. We shall confine ourselves
to a few essential questions.
One target of criticism has been the criterion of "basic" as
distinguished from "technical" verifiability. This is a funda-
mental point of the doctrine, because it prejudges the question
whether it is at all possible to formulate a usable criterion of
scientific meaningfulness. Critics point out that the positivists
define "basic" verifiability as conformity with certain rules of
logical syntax, but in formulating thcse rules they appeal to the
verifiability of expressions, thus begging the question.
However, the positivists have had an especially hard time
defending the principle of verifiability itself as a criterion of
meaningfulness. What is the rule of verifiability, critics asked.
Since it is neither an empirical nor an analytic statement, it must
be a metaphysical one in the positivists' own "bad" sense. In
other words, the doctrine of logical empiricism has a meta-
physical thesis at its very fonndation, and hence cannot lay
claim to being more scientific than any other doctrine. Positivists
reply that the principle in question is not a thesis but a definition,
and hence need not meet the conditions to which scientific
assertions are subject.
However, this question-which deserves special attention be-
cause it is central to the doctrine-is not elucidated by this
reply. The grounds are merely shifted. It is perfectly proper to
ask what reasons oblige ns to accept such a definition of mean-
ingfulness. In the history of logical empiricism, verifiability has
been defined in a great many, more or less rigorous ways; de-
pending on the formulation, the boundaries of legitimate in-
tellectual endeavor have been shifted now this way, now that,
and what was called "scientific" according to one definition did
not deserve the name according to another. What were the
reasons behind so many shifting proclamations as to what de-
serves the name of knowledge, what not? And if such declara-
tions are purely arbitrary, then what practical considerations
justify them?
There is an answer to these objections, too. For it is possible
to formulate a rule tacitly observed in such analyses, according
to which only those assertions will be regarded as cognitive or
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM 201
scientific that are or may become helpful to mankind's practical
activity-not in the sense of any sort of influence on this
activity (for even the most fanciful metaphysics may influence
human behavior), hur in the sense that such assertions imply the
actual effectiveness of certain modes of behavior. This rnle
turns out to involve great difficulties when we try to formulate
it in a way that enables us to decide in every particular case
whether we afe dealing with an "operational" statement or one
of no consequence. Bur even if we succeeded in formulating it
in the desired way, the question of whether the ultimate decision
has an arbitrary valuational character would not be got rid of.
For it is easy to see that to define the efficiency or technical
"operativeness" of staterrlents as the measure of their meaning-
fulness, admissibility, or cognitive value is to make a valuational
decision within a specific cultural context. The latter may be
dominant at the time the decision is made, but it cannot pretend
to possess absolnte and transcendental value over all other
cultural contexts. We may recognize that "value" is that which
increases the store of energy available to mankind for its use,
but we cannot maintain that such a rule does not involve a
decision within the hierarchy of values. Thus, this whole anti-
metaphysical doctrine with its theory of meaningful statements
turns out to rest upon a given system of valuation, as relative
and as closely bound up with a specific cultural background as
any other.
It is obvious, for instance, that the accounts of mystical
states reported by an individual convinced he has had personal
contact with the godhead are not "scientific" in the current
sense of the term. But we cannot decide whether they are
meaningful or have cognitive "value" before defining what we
call meaningful. If the area of meaningfulness is defined by the
more or less freely formulated rules applied in natnral science,
or by the rule of operativeness, or by technological applicahility,
it is clear that the record of those mystical experiences will be
meaningless. However, such a rule is merely one of a number
of possible expressions of the traditional positivist attitude,
which recognizes only those human efforts measurable by utili-
tarian success and ascribes the dignity of knowledge only to
that with which "you can do something." In the light of such
an attitude all metaphysical statements are obvionsly inconse-
quential, for from statements such as "God is Three Persons in
One" or "Matter is the foundation of Being,') no inference can
be drawn that would increase any kind of technical efficiency.
It is permissible to take such an attitude, but it is illegitimate to
assert that it is anything more than an attitude, that is, a certain
valuational perspective within which we place am environment.
More particularly, we are not entitled to assert-it would,
moreover, be contrary to other fundamental positivist assump-
tions-that this attitude represents non-relative valnes, something
of value independent of human history, human needs, psy-
chological dispositions, logically arbitrary decisions. That which
we decide to recognize as cognitively valuable or that to which
we agree to apply the term "knowledge" is logically arbitrary
and historically determined by the culture within which such
decisions are made.
Logical empiricism, then, is the product of a specific culture,
one in which technological efficiency is rcgarded as the highest
value, the culture we usually call "technocratic." It is a techno-
cratic ideology in the mystifying guise of an anti-ideological,
scientific view of the world, pnrgedof value judgments. The
fact that contemporary positivism is unable to grasp its own
relativity and dependence on specific culmral values is perhaps
of no special importance: after all, the same is trne of all
ideologies, which assume that their own values are absolute in
contradistinction to all others, and by the same token represent
themselves as free of ideological elements, solely concerned
with efficient intellectual operation. There is still another reason
why this cannot be an objection. A certain degree of blindness
as to the absoluteness of one's own values may be indispensable
to extract the valnable qnalities from the world, the qnalities
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM
20
3
whose value is believed to be the highest. It is possible that in
order to realize one's values one must have faith in their exclnsive
character. Radical historical skepticism discourages practical
action. Indeed, contemporary positivism is an attempt to over-
come historicism once and for all: it separates all epistemological
questions from genetic questions and attempts to formulate
rules governing the use of words independently of the conditions
under which they came into being. This is why the elimination
of genetic questions from the theory of knowledge, and ex-
clnsive concentration on the logical validity of thinking-the
features that distinguish logical empiricism from empiriocriti-
cism-are fundamental points of this program. Most positivists
believe that science and human thinking generally can be com-
pletely nentralized from a philosophic point of view, and that
within the area of experience so neutralized, to which no
existential determinations are ascribed, "the scientific view" ful-
fills the same conditions as Husserl's transcendental ego, i.e.,
makes the criteria of the correctness of knowledge completely
independent of the cnltural, historical, psychological, and biolog-
ical conditions uuder which this knowledge is achieved. Once
ontology has been neutralized, we have at our disposal an
absolute observational standpoint. As a result, logical empiricism
is an optimistic philosophy, for it rejects by definition the
possibility of insoluble problems and rules out the agnostic
attimde (anything of which we might say ignorabimus cannot
be formulated as a question). It is an act of emancipation from
troublesome philosophical qnestions, which it denounces in ad-
vance as fictitious; it also frees ns of the need to study history,
which-since any philosophy worthy of the name must be
cumulative in character-must appear to those professing this
doctrine as a succession of barren, futile efforts, basically un-
intelligihle as to results, only very occasionally illuminated by a
ray of common sense. The judgments passed by positivists on
the philosophical systems of the past as well as on contemporary
metaphysical specnlation usually have the character of summary
20
4
condemnations; they are not based on study of the condemned
doctrines, hnt on ridiculing statements torn ant of context. This
will he clear to anyone who has read works hy Chwistek,
Reichenbach, Carnap, A yer, and others.
In one respect, however, the positivists do give voice to the
ideological intentions that inspire their program, althongh they
do not relate their philosophical standpoint to them. All of them
have been convinced that their program is eminently educa-
tional: it is a call to tolerance, moderation, restraint, and responsi-
bility for one's own words. Politically, the majority of logical
empiricists have heen close to the Social Democrat position and
favor parliamentary democracy; they have been resolutely hos-
tile to fascist and racist doctrines, and for the most part also
dislike communism. They have not, however, been liberals in
the traditional historical sense of the term, i.e., they have not
professed social Darwinism or Spencer's social philosophy. They
represent a humanitarian protest against a world entangled in
bloody conflicts, and are convinced that spreading the so-called
scientific attitude is an effective antidote to the madness of the
ideologists. "The concept of 'truth' as something dependent
upon facts largely outside hnman control has been one of the
ways in which philosophy has inculcated the necessary element
of humility. When the check npol1 pride is removed, a further
step is taken on the road towards a celtain madness-the
intoxication of power-which invaded philosophy with Fichte,
and to which modern men, whether philosophers 01' not, are
prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest threat
of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unin-
tentionally, contrihutes to it, is increasing the danger of vast
social disaster." (Bertrand Rnssell)
This declaration is not exceptional. At least to some extent
the positivists are aware of the extra-cognitive fnnctions their
philosophy performs and they approve of these. In line with
Rnssell's words, these functions mnst above all consist in accns-
toming the human mind to accept the conmaints of publicly
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM 20
5
controllable circumstances where any and all convictions are
concerned. If such an attitude spread, the beneficial effects of
scientism would he m;nifest at once: controversies to which
scientific meaning cannot be ascribed wonld disappear, and with
them would go all conflicts, persecutions, and acts of intolerance
stemming from such controversies. However, faith in the
therapentic power of the positivist ideology implies certain
assumptions. It is possible to assume that submissiveness to
ideological pressures and fanaticisms is merely a kind of error
or ignorance, that it derives from rashly ascribing meaning to
sentences that in fact are similar to real questions only in
grammatical structure, and admit of no real answers. Such an
assumption, which tacitly constrncts a model of a perfectly
rational "human nature" capable of evil solely because of de-
fective thinking, is of course too naive to figure in the positivist
program, were it only by implication. We may imagine another,
less extreme assumption that might suffice to jnstify the positivist
hopes, namely that the pressure of rationalism in the sense
stated above (rationalism as a rnle recommending that we regard
the degree to which a statement is justified as the measure of the
force of conviction with which it is asserted-in accordance
with Locke's saying) may be strong enough to increase the
probability at least of doing away with fanatic and intolerant
attitudes, and this thanks to gradually increasing awareness that
all human convictions have a coefficient of uncertainty. Such a
view does not necessarily imply the belief that human hehavior
is completely determined by the given state of knowledge, but
only the belief that human nature includes features favorable to
development in the direction of increasing rationality. This latter
assumption is not as flagrantly naive as the pl'evious one, but it
would seem hard to build upon it hopes for the success of the
positivist program until Olle has formed an opinion as to the real
sources of violent ideological conflict and tbe "right" to in-
tolerance a given model of truth carries with it. If, as we have
good reason to think, ideological conflicts are the intellectual
206 THE ALIENATION OF RFASON
forms assumed by conflicts of interest not in themselves purely
ideological, then hope for the effectiveness of scientistic ther-
apies has no secure fonndation. We should rather suppose that
ideologies must be fought by ideological means, not by appeals
to restraint in the matter of conviction or to silence in the face
of questions that do not meet the conditions of meaningfulness
elaborated by the logical syntax of langnage.
In one respect, however, the positivist program has a value
that can hardly be questioned. Although the expectation that it
can serve as an effective antidote to social dangers stemming
from the most various ideological conflicts seems utopian, we
are today in a better position than ever before, thanks to more
exact definitions of the scientific attitude and the scientific
admissibility of assertions, to counteract the ideological misuse
of science. In other words, ability to give a relatively good
definition of the boundaries of scientific validity-an ability
developed largely thanks to the positivists-is of great im-
portance when we must criticize the claims of docttinaires who
invoke the authority of science in suppott of their slogans.
The most glaring example is the attempts that have been made
to justify racism on the basis of anthropology. The possibility of
demonstrating the hopelessness of such undertaldngs is not
without importance, although it is clear that it cannot decisively
influence the outcome of social conflicts. The sheer rigor of the
positivist rules has awakened intellectuals to their own responsi-
bilities, and in my opinion have been of practical aid in counter-
acting attempts to blur the boundaries between the position of
the scientist and the obligations of the believer. Precisely be-
cause they add up to a kind of scientific ethics, these rules have
never lost their timeliness.
Conclusion
The pnrpose of this book has been to present a few doctrines
important in tbe history of positivism and to sbow tbat each of
them is an aspect of the cultural background out of which it.
arose. Each phase of positivist thought is a specific variation of
the dominant intellectual style. At the same time, however, a
diachronic continuity is clearly disclosed when we compare
successive versions of positivism; thanks to this continuity the
idea of treating the history of positivism as a distinct whole is
meaningful. In the first chapter we tried to characterize (though
this inevitably involved a certain degree of arbitrariness) the
thematic features of this whole. This leads to the question
whether positivism also discloses cnltural features justifying its
treatment as a distinctive whole, or whether we are dealing with
a number of traditional philosophical themes that were in each
case adapted to the needs of a given period.
I hesitate to give a clear-cut answer to tbis question, for it
involves certain difficult historiosophic decisions. The question is
all the more vexatious because the meaning the positivists them-
selves ascribe to their anti-metaphysical bias has been inter-
preted, as we have seen, in various ways. This is best illustrated
by comparing the rules given by \Vittgenstein with those given
by Carnap. It is one thing to say "What we cannot speak of we
must be silent about," something else again to say that meta-
physics should be neated like poetry. After all, poetry is not
silence, for all that it cannot be called "true" or "false" in the
208 CONCLUSION
sClnan6c sense. Wittgenstein's rule urges us to banish whatever
cannot be expressed as a logical sentence from our image of the
world, more generally from all intellectual concern, Carnap's
merely warns us to distinguish betweeo meaniugful and un-
verifiable statements, to treat the latter as purely expressive or
lyrical utterances; he urges ns not to confuse something that
merely expresses with something that also has meaning, and
hence to refrain from representing' the en10tional gestures in-
volved in metaphysical, religious, Of valuational verbalizations as
anthentic convictions whose rightness or wrongness it is possible
to dispute, When the anti-metaphysical prohibition goes no
farther than a definition of knowledge that automatically gives
extra-scientific status to philosophical assertions, the practice of
metaphysics becomes, so to speak, legal according to positivism,
so long as we do not ascribe so-called cognitive valne to such
reflections, In this case, positivism cannot, strictly speaking, ful-
fill the ideological tasks mentioned at the end of the preceding
chapter; that is, it cannot, if it is to be consistent, have a
destructive effect on ideological attitudes, it can only deny them
scientific justification, trnth or falsity in the scientific sense,
The majority of positivists are strongly inclined to follow
Wittgenstein's more radical rule: they do not simply reject the
cognitive claims of metaphysics, they refuse it any recognition
whatever. The second, more moderate version is also repre-
sented, however, and according to it a metaphysics that makes
no scientific claims is legitimate, Philosophers who, like Jaspers,
do not look upon philosophy as a type of knowledge but only
as an attempt to elucidate Existenz, or even as an appeal to others
to make such an attempt, do not transgress the positivist code,
The latter attitude is nearly universal in present-day existentialist
phenomenOlogy, Awareness of fundamental differences between
"investigation'? and "refiectiol1
j
" between scientific "accuracy"
and philosophic "precision," between "problems" and "question-
ing" or "mystery" is expressed by all existentialist philosophers,
Heidegger as well as Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel.
CONCLUSION
20
9
More than that, the newest theological tendencies, particularly
the Protestant ones, take cognizance of the positivist critique,
and their interpretations of the world meet its requirements, at
least those of its morc moderate formulation, They do not try to
prove that the theological conception of the world is a descrip-
tion of facts, a legitimate deduction, or a construction of
hypotheses; they (Paul Tillich, John Hick) recognize that it
has interpretative functions thanks to which the facts take on
special meaning as constituents of a purposeful order organized
by Providence, According to them, this kind of non-empirical
meaningfUlness is like other common-sense interpretations that
are independent of theology, such as the realist view of the
physical world.
Other writers make use of the more relaxed rules of meaning-
fulness in Wittgenstein's later works, and argue that the rules
governing the use of theological terms are sufficiently defined to
meet the conditions of meaningfulness no less completely than
empirical terms, The last-mentioned kind of apologetics goes
back to views that assign equal cognitive status to science and
metaphysics, and thus violate even the moderate positivist in-
junctions, The former kind, however, may be regarded as mark-
ing an essential change in attitude, and implies partial agreement
with positivist criticisms, This attitude brings to mind Pascal,
who defended the Christian religion while subscribing to the
rational cdtique of Scholasticism and recognizing its results as
irreversible; therefore he resorted to practical arguments trying
to persuade others that they must accept beliefs that he himself
agreed cannot be proved on rational grounds,
If the positivist slogans advanced over and over again for a
few centuries could be reduced to this tempered version of the
anti-metaphysical program, positivism would merely express
science's continually renewed attempt to constitute itself, dif-
ferentiating itself in turn from theology, religion, politics, and
art; it would be a natural secretion of science, its growing
awareness of its own irreducible position in social life, The
210 CONCLUSION
radical verSlOn has an entirely different cultural meaning. It is
an attempt to consolidate science as a self-sufficient activity,
which exhausts all the possible ways of appropriating the world
intellectually. In this radical positivist view, the realities of the
world-which can, of course, be interpreted by natural science,
but which are in addition an object of man's "existential
curjosity," a source of fear or disquiet, an occasion for com-
mitment or rejection-if they are to be encompassed by re-
flection and expressed in words, can be reduced to their em-
pirical properties. Suffering, death, ideological conflict, social
clashes, antithetical values of any kind-all are declared out of
bounds, matters we can only be silent about, in obedience to the
.. principle of verifiability. Positivism so understood is an act of
)\
escape from commitments, an escape masked as a definition of
knowledge, invalidating all such matters as mere figments of the
imagination stemming from intellectual laziness. Positivism in
this sense is the escapist's design for living, a life volnntarily cut
off from participation in anything that cannot be correctly for-
mulated. Tbe language it imposes exempts us from the duty of
speaking up in life's most important conflicts, encases us in a kind
of armor of indifference to the ineffabilia mundi, the indescriba-
ble qualitative data of experience.
What I am particularly concerned with, however, is to bring
out a certain interpretative ambignity or, perhaps, a certain
hard-to-trace bonndary line separating two possible interpre-
tations of the positivist assnmptions. I mentioned earlier the
scientistic ideology that would prescribe a kind of intellectnal
discipline as a preventative of arbitrary thinking. In the words
of Bertrand Rnssell qnoted earlier, such a discipline imposes
humility on the human mind and subjects it to facts. And yet,
whether this ideological formnla can be vindicated depends on
whether we can free the positivist code of dangers involved in
the pragmatic interpretation of truth-in other words, on
whether we can renounce metaphysics irrevocably, without
CONCLUSION 2II
leaving room for its justiiication, not on the ground of its
"truth" but of its "utility."
Let me give a simple illnstration. Stanislaw Brzozowski, com-
menting on Avenarius's philosophy in Ideas, pictured it as an
ideology of despair, a dramatic confession by the philosopher
that the true, the good, and the beautiful are not "elements" of
experience but "characters." Unlinked to experienc,? in any one-
to-one correspondence, they are rooted in socially conditioned
modifications of experience, and in every case are "someone's"
trnth, good, or beauty; what is regarded as true or false, good
or evil, is determined by varions circumstances connected with
the ecological situation of the organism; truth is an attitude
just like recognition of a given experiential complex as pleasant
or nnpleasant.
According to Brzozowski, this epistemology conceals a tragic
renunciation of human pride, which A venarius does not state
explicitly becanse to do so wonld be incompatible with his
ascetic style. Irrational external circnmstances determine what
we are supposed to regard as the true or the good; cognitive
values have been reduced to the level of ephemeral, changeable
experiences of pleasnre or pain, which cannot be the object of
argnmentation. Reduced to a biological reaction, the world of
moral values collapses along with the alleged eternity, "objectiv-
ity," or autonomy of aesthetic values. On this score the note of
resignation in Avenarius's philosophy coincides with Nietzsche's
nihilism; with this difference, however, that in the face of the
destruction of all traditional values, Avenarius does not attempt
to create his own scale of values, but is content to lay bare the
critical point human self -knowledge has reached.
It might be said that this is not an interpretation of positivism
but rather of natnralism or pragmatism, more generally of any
doctrine that programmatically reduces the acconnt of cognitive
fnnctions to an acconnt of biological behavior, and thns makes
pointless any question concerning "truth" in the usnal sense.
This was exactly how Husser! interpreted nineteenth-century
212 CONCLUSION
positivism, however. He, too, saw it as symptomatic of cultural
crisis, as a theory that reduces human life to animal forms of
appropriating the world, and that rules out all possibility of
ever encountering truth. This was why he set out in search of
certain knowledge; the purpose of his transcendental reduction
is to rediscover the irreducibly primitive domain lost sight of
by positivists and evolutionists, where doubt is impossible when
the content of experience no longer depends on specific biologi-
calor historical situations. Thus Husserl interpreted evolurionist
and biology-oriented positivism in the same sense as Brzozowski,
although Husser!, less sensitive to the non-philosophical causes
of the crisis, belicved it could be overcome by philosophical
means, and devoted his lifelong labors to this task.
The question arises: Is the whole evolutionist current of
positivism, the reduction of knowledge to a biological instru-
ment of adaptation, touched off by the Darwinian revolution but
already rooted in Hume's critique, merely one variant of posi-
tivist thought-a modification, an aberration, a deviation, per-
haps an accident? Or could it be that the constitutive, the
essential core of positivism contains something that Jeads in-
evitably to such biological relativization, for all that one and
another variety of positivism fail to draw this dangerous con-
sequence?
It is well known, of course, thnt some versions of positivism,
especially logical empiricism, are not concerned with the genetic
conditions of knowledge and concentrate their efforts on analyz-
ing the procedures and results of science. This version of
positivism never asks what are the origin and the use of meta-
physical beliefs, bur defines valid cognition in such a way as to
rule out metaphysical investigation. It also defines the conditions
of legitimate experience, rejecting or ruling out questions con-
cerning its ontological status. Tarski's legalization of the seman-
tic notion of truth, though important in the history of logical
empiricism, does not change this situation, for it refers to the
relation obtaining between linguistic signs and elements of ex-
CONCLUSION
21
3
perience and docs not prejudge or even raise the question con-
cerning the metaphysical meaning of experience itself.
At the same time such philosophical neutralizing of experience
does not make the question concerning its origin meaningless.
What follows from it is merely that assertions that imply a
causal relation between cognitive contents and a "thing in itself"
or a "spiritual substance" are lllcaningless. Therefore, if the
question is nonetheless put, the only possible positivist answer to
it is the naturalistic one: knowledge is biological behavior. Such
an answer implies the denial of truth in any transcendental
sense and paralyzes all possible faith in experience or reason
concei ved of as capable of disclosing to us something of "the
world's qualities." All contemporary positivists are convinced
that valuational predicates have no experiential counterparts; as
for predicates characterizing logical values ("true," "false"),
they are supposed to refer not to things but only to sentences,
and hence their situation appears different from the others,
for bere these predicates are inapplicable (one cannot ask: are
things truly true?).
This, however, is merely a verbal distinction: the traditional
philosophic question concerning the anthenticity or the limits of
authenticity of knowledge is not nullified by the limited applica-
bility of tbe adjective "tnJe." From the positivist standpoint, this
question requires certain distinguos. There are ways-not per-
fect, but fairly effective ways-of distinguishing between knowl-
edge and error within the limits of compelling experience, but
any question referring to the totality of experience is meaning-
less. In other words: the epistemological problem in the strict
sense cannot be solved, and hence (or because of this) it is not a
problem. Since it refers to the object of knowledge as a whole,
i.e., refers to "all," it is a metaphysical problem ill the positivist
sense of the term.
This is why, according to the canons of this philosophy,
genetic questions concerning knowledge can be formulated only
as psychological questions; in contradistinction to the illusions of
214 CONCLUSION
"correce' perception, we always reduce ((correctness" to agree-
ment among many human subjects as to their perceptions, and
we cannot go beyond this ontologically neutral area. Every
answer to the question concerning the reasons for snch in-
tersnbjective agreement ("Why do we agree on a great number
of perceptions''') must in the end refer to characteristics com-
mon to all members of the human species. The moment genetic
questions make their appearance, posidvist naturalism is trans-
formed into a biological interpretation of knowledge and can-
not avoid snch relativization. This makes it possible to preserve
the strict rules governing the use of the terms "true" and
"false," but they must now refer to the human species; a
considerable degree of invariability is ascribed to truth but its
transcendental meaning is denied.
Many contemporary positivists reject this consequence and
make use of logical values as though they had a transcendental
meaning, but the pragmatist interpretation lies in wait for those
who are less restrained in their questioning. In this case restraint
does not reflect positivist radicalism, but a halfhearted positivist
attitude. The least restrained positivist-Avenarius-is the most
radical. His neutralizing of experience is at the same time
liquidation of the fictitious "inner essence" withiu which the
"outside" world supposedly manifests, discloses, or subjectivizes
itself. By the same token the subject-object relation becomes the
relation "nervous system-environment," and the whole epistemo-
logical prohlem becomes biological, while the value "truth" is
only a particnlar biological instance of how the human species
interprets its experiences.
The idea I should like to formulate as a result of these
reflections is as follows. Positivism, when it is radical, renounces
the transcendental meaning of truth and reduces logical values
to features of biological behavior. The rejection of the possibility
of synthetic judgments a priori-the fundamental act constitut-
ing positivism as a doctrine-can be identified with the reduction
of all knowledge to biological responses; induction is merely one
CONCLUSION
21
5
form of the conditioned reflex, and to ask, Under what con-
ditions is induction legitimate? is to ask, Under what conditions
is the acquisition of a given reflex biologically advantageous?
All so-called generalizing fnnctions and the formulating of
scientific hypotheses serve merely to increase or improve our
store of conditioned reflexes, and there are no such things as
necessary truths, i.e., truths that, according to the old meta-
physicians, could tell us what the world "mnst be," rather than
what it in fact is. (Needless to say, the very question concerning
"necessary" features of the world is meaningless from the
positivist viewpoint.) According to Mach's theory, science is an
extension of animal experience and has no other meaning than
the totality of experiences on which it is based; but in contrast
to animal empiricism it operates with a system of shorthand
notations thanks to which connections between the phenomena
we discover can be handed down to posterity. TIllS is a dis-
tinctive characteristic of the hnman species, wlllch enahles it to
benefit from past intellectual and technological achievements.
Now a qnestion arises that positivists rarely ask themselves
and that cannot really concern them: How can we account for
the pecnliar fact that over many centuries human thought has
ascribed to "Reason" the ability to discover "necessary" featnres
in the world, and for so long a time failed to see that these
feamres are figments of the imagination? Whence comes tIlls
desire for a "metaphysical certainty" that can be gratified only
fictitionsly, by an illusory, purely sentimental feeling of cer-
tainty?
Positivists confronted with questions of this kind are satisfied
to give a purely epistemological answer: like all allegedly meta-
physical riddles, the whole problem of necessary trnths results
from the abuse of words, from grammatical inertia (hypostatiz-
ing abstract terms, substantializing verbs and adjectives, etc.-
Hobhes said the last word on this subject). In short, according
to the positivists, we are dealing with an error. We shall not
ZI6 CONCLUSION
inquire here whether it really is an error. We shall confine
ourselves, in conclusion, to the following observations:
If non-analytic knowledge is only the sum total of the
individual experiences on which it is based and man's cognitive
functions are distinguished only by his ability to record ex-
periences, store them, and hand them down to posterity, then
his stubborn aspiration to "necessary" knowledge must obvi-
ously be dismissed as a futile longing for a non-existent
epistemological paradise. The enormous efforts made in the
history of culmre to discover this paradise were wholly chimeri-
caL Nonetheless the vast amounts of energy squandered in these
explorations and the extraordinary tenacity with which they
were carried on are worth pondering, all the more because the
explorers were perfectly aware of the technological inconse-
quence of their efforts. After all, what seventeenth-century
writers called "moral certainty" -i.e., conditions under which
we may recognize the truth of a giveu judgment although our
reasons for doing so have no ahsolute character-is entirely
snfficient in scientific thought. From the point of view of
applied knowledge, the desire for an epistemological absolute,
i.e., "metaphysical certainty," is fruitless, and those in quest of
this certainty were perfectly aware of the fact. And yet, we
repeat, philosophy has never given up its attempt to constitute
an autonomous "Reason," independent of technological applica-
tions and irreducible to purely recording functions.
Even if this attempt could be accounted for by the mere
misuse of words (which seems highly unlikely), the very fact
that it has been made again and again would be evidence of
some sort of intellectual degeneracy in the human species. For
how else can we interpret these persistent yet fruitless efforts?
What gave rise to this orgy or intellectual debauch, which has
been practiced for so many centuries and is still being practiced?
Ought we not to suspect that the "Reason" that aspired to make
itself independent of empirical data and to discover its own
domain is some sort of cancerous tissue that has lost interest in
CONCLUSION
its proper, its biologically useful, instrumental mission, and has
kept on growing at the expense of genuine vital needs? What
else can be the meaning of the assertion that we are dealing
with an error, a mistake, an abuse or misuse of words?
If it is true that the quest for "metaphysical certainty" is by
definition cognitively fruitless (and it is certainly biologically
fruitless, at least in the sense that it does not increase the
technological effectiveness of the species), we are compelled to
conclude that man's intellectual life is evidence of his biological
decadence-a conclusion that accords with the extremer ver-
sions of the so-called philosophy of life.
Obviously, another hypothesis is possible. We may imagine
that man's specifically "rational" life-i.e., his effotts to establish
the autonomy of "reason"-is evidence of man's participation
in another existential order than the one in which his body and
animal needs participate. Then everything that is scientifically
fruitful, and hence technologically useful, everything that can
in one way or another be reduced to articulated conditioned
reflexes, would belong among the biological functions, modified
only by inherited elements-in accordance with Hume and
Mach. On the other hand, everything that stems from other
efforts and interests, all aspirations to "transcendental" knowl-
edge, we would be obliged to regard as the result of our
participation in some non-animal world, in chronic opposition
to the other. In accordance with Bergson's doctrine, scientific
and analytic intelligence would be a functional extension of
organic efficiency, while autonomous "Reason" (as the faculty
of non-discursive intuition or of discovering metaphysical truth)
would not be an extension or surface layer or instrument of this
organic efficiency, but an antagonistic power. In other words,
we would he compelled to assume that our biological life and
our metaphysical explorations spring from two incompatible and
even hostile existential sources, or, to put it concisely, that the
physical world is a kind of malicious joke, a trick played on us
by some god or demon, while we, the victims of this joke,
218 CONCLUSION
suffer all the consequences of simultaneously and inevitably
belonging to hostile worlds, the consequences of dual citizenship
in two countries at odds with each other in a state of protracted
warfare. This is roughly the Manichaean doctrine, which can
perfectly well be formulated without recourse to religious ideas.
Such an alternative is not encouraging. It is hard to choose
between an image of man as the result of evolutionary
decadence and the other image, in which he must be looked
upon as made up of two halves that do not really fit and cannot
possibly be harmonized. Such a choice, of course, is not dictated
to us by any scientific considerations; for the time being it
remains at the level of purely philosophic reflectiol', and hence,
from the positivist viewpoint, can be set aside like any other
metaphysical dilemma. But from the observational standpoint to
which positivism assigns an ideological function in our present
historical situation, the question takes on reality. From this
standpoint, positivist criticism is a rejection of HReason" so un-
derstood, and hence is inevitahly an animalization of the cognitive
effort. But this criticism is unable to account satisfactorily for
the existence of its opposite, which it treats as mere "errol',))
and hence demands no further interpretation.
Now, several centuries of positivist thought-particularly its
critiques of synthetic judgments a priori, of the validity of
induction, of "essentialist" metaphysics, and of value judgments
-have given non-positivists an awareness of the problems such
as can no longer be reversed or concealed. We are not compelled
to accept this critique in the sense that it reduces every meta-
physical investigation and quest for certainty to mere "error";
but we must take cognizance of one of its results, namely, that
this technologically useless intellectual effort to attain to Being
must once and for all renounce claims to "scientific" status.
This result, as I have said before, may be regarded as almost
universally accepted. Finally, we must under this assnmption
recognize that when we try to justify our metaphysical investi-
gations or at least to account for them, we are confronted with
CONCLUSION
21
9
the alternative outlined above: either "Reason" is a cancerous
tissue in a sick species, or, within the physical world and the
imperatives of our bodily nature, is an alien body originating in
another world. The philosophical work of our day has found
itself caught-to a great extent under the influence of positivist
criticism-between the philosophy of life and the lurid Mani-
chaean vision.
Index
Abstract concepts, 6-7
Activ ism, 171
Adaptation, 122
Agnosticism, 103
Ajdukiewiez, Kazimicrz, 135, 142,
'9), '94-95
Alchemy, 20, 56
America, 179; contribution to phi-
losophy, 154-55
Analytical judgments, IS
Analytical philosophy, 174-75
Animal world, 54
Anthropology, 198, 206
Anthropomorphic notions, 117
Anti-individualism, 71
Aristotelian(s), 17, 20; categories,
13; metaphysics, 15i physics, 16
Aristotle, 159; categories for under-
standing the world, 160; nature, 12
Artistic creation, 67
Astrology, 20, 56
Astronomy, 49. 54, 56, 58, 94; nomi-
nalists, 160; positive stage, 58; pre-
dictions, 60-61
Astrophysics, 53
Atheism, 22, 29, 67
Atomists, I r
"Attraction,ll 29
Augustine, Saint, doctrine of grace,
'7
Augustinianism, 16
Austria, 179. See also Vienna
A nthority: Comte, 51;
itual, 63, 64
Autrecourt, Nicolas d', 14-I5
Avenarius, Richard, !Os, 106-14, IIS,
lIS-19, n6, 128, T54, 183,214; cri-
tique of "introjection," 109-14;
CTitique af Pure ExpeTience, 107-
9; disciples, lOSi Ideas, 2Uj "vital
series," roS
Bacon, Francis, I2, 80
Bacon, Roger, I2-13
Beccaria, Cesare, 83
Behaviorism, 189-90, 193
Beliefs, irrational, 178
Bentham, Jeremy, 81-82, 83
Bergson, Henri, 77. 78, u6, 131,
217; conventionalism, 148; Le Roy,
135; positivism, 152-53
Berkeley, George, 28-29, 3D, 32, 35,
122, H8, 130
Bernard, 73-78j Cdmte, 74-
75, 7
6
Biological sciences, 58. 73j positiv-
ism, 73-74, 89
Biology, 59
LlBlanquism," 127-28
Bogdanov, A. A., 127
Bolsheviks, 127, H8
Boyle-Mariotte's law, 61
Brazil, 50
Bridgman, P. W., T96
Brzozowski, Stanislaw, 21I, 212
222
INDEX
Buridan, Jean, 16
Calculation, 56
Cambridge University, I79
Capital, 73
Carnap, Rudolf, 179, 183, r84, 187.
204. 207-8
Cartesianism, 27, 28, 59, 163
Castes, 63
Catholicism: Comte, 65, 66; conven-
tionalism, 147; Le Roy, I 48-49;
modernist French movement, 135
Causality, 15, 26, I21, 124, 115. qo;
Comtt, 70; Hume, 38-39; occo.-
sionalisrs, 27; understanding, 37
Canse: concept oC 36; -effect rela-
tionship, 13, 34-35
Chemistry, 56, 58, 94-95; positive
stage, 58-59
Christianity. 22, 209
Church, See Catholicism and Reli-
gion
Church-State separation, 14
Chwistek, Leon, 204
Cicero, 64
Classes, theory of, 177
Classification, principle, 77. See also
Comte
Co-existence, 52, 99
Cognition, 3. 119-20, n8, 129. 17
2
;
biological interpretation, 162;
James, 162, r63-64; methods, 176;
principle of economy, 125; sci-
entific, I22
Communism, 204
Comte, Auguste, I, 45, 47-48, 105;
biography, 48-5; classifications,
61-62; critics, 67, 99; disciples,
47,48,49; doctrine, 71; history, 67;
influence, 71; Law of the Three
States, 53-54; marriage, 49; ma-
terialism, 67; mental illness, 47, 49;
popularizers, 68; religion of hu-
manity, 47, 64-67; Saint-Simon,
48; science reform, 53-62; social
reform, 50-52; sociology reform,
62-64; thought, results of, 67-72;
wodes, 49
Concept.<;, I24-25, 128; validity, II7
Contiguity, time-space, 33
Contingency, 25-26
Contradiction, principle of, 14-15
Conventionalism, (ists), r84; Cathol-
icism, 147; characteristics, 134;
consequences, r 50-53; criticisms,
141-47; in France, 135-36; funda-
mental idea, 134-35; hypotheses,
136-41; ideologies, 147-50; leading
idea, 134-36; simplicity, 143-44
Copernicus, 16, 58; theory, 140;
160-61
Counter-Refo,rmatioll, 17
Cuvier, Georges, 56, 61
D'Alembert, 44-45
Darwin, Charles, 73, 90, I2 1-22, 204,
212
Deductive reasoning, 56, 176
Denmark, r 79
Descanes, Rene, 23-25, 163
Despotism, Enlightenment and,
Determinism, 76, ]'67
Dewey, John, 169. 170
Differentiation, 93
Dilthey school, 190
Dingler, Hugo, 135, 139, 149
Dissolution, 92
Divine Will, IS
Dogmatism, 165
Dualism, 109, I I r, 1 I 3, 168
Dubislav, M., 179
Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 124
Duhem, Pierre, II7, 135, 136, T38,
144, 146, 147; Physics of a Be-
liever, 148
Economy, principle of, 114-r8
Einstein, Albert: theory of relativ-
ity, 135
Empirical data, 9
INDEX 223
Empirical knowledge, 23, 24, 25-26
Empirical reality, 6
Empiricism, I Tl, 176; English, 175;
Enlightenment, 3 I; logical, 173
(see also Logical empiricism);
Mill, 80, 81; Renaissance, 18
Empiriocriticism, I04-6, I 13. I2 5-
3!; conventionalism, 134, 146-47;
features, I31; logical empiricism,
178-79, 23; pragmatism, 166; sub-
jectivism, I27
Encyclopedists, 161
Energy, conservation of, 73
Engels, Friedrich, 128, 130
England, 49, 51, 89, 179; empiricism,
175; philosophers, 78; political
thought" 82; pragmatism, I71
Enlightenment, 52, 78, 81; beliefs,
45, 83; characteristics, 44; enemies,
46; Hume, 39; positivism, 29-31,
45; totalitarian utopias, 7 I
Environment, I lOft., 1I9i truths, 162
Epistemology, 104, 106, 109, Il3,
147; genetic approach, 197; infer-
ences, 114; theoretical, 198
Essence, 3, 26
Ethics, 830 99; empiricism, 192-93;
scientific, I09, 206; transcendental,
86
Euclid, Element'S, 24
Europe, 5, l8-19, I25; pragmatism,
171
Events, predicting, 60-6I
Evolution, 91-92; theory of, 53, 61,
73, 89-91 , 92
"Existential curiosity," 210
Existentialism, I, 187, 203, 208; judg-
ments, 24, 25; philosophers, 208
Experience, II, 111-11, 176; Critique
of Pure Experience, 107-9; data
of, rI, 167-68; flux of, 167, 168;
neutralizing, 214; ordering, 7; posi-
tivism, 182-83; primacy of, 124-
25; "pure," 104, J06, J08, concepr
of, 117-18
Experiment, S6, T09
Experimentalism-nominalism, 13
Fact: atomic, 180, 18r; concept of,
106, II7. 136; conventionalists, 145;
practical-theoretical distinction,
138; scientific, 137, laws, lSI
Faith, 20, 95, 148-49; Comte, 67-
68; -knowledge, 2 I; nominalism,
16; pragmatism, r66; -reason sep-
aration, 14, 37-38
Family, 63, 65-66
Fanaticism, 178
Fascism, 171, 204
Fechner, Gustav, 122:
Fichte, Johann, 204
Fourier) Franyois, 56
France, 48, 50, 5t, 134; Catholic
thought, 135. conventionalism,
135-36; Enlightenment (see En-
lightenment); libertines, 21 i Paris,
13, 14-15, 16; philosophers, 78
Freedom, 158; Hume, 43 j Mill, 88-
89; of the will, 165
Frege, Gottlob, [79
French Revolution, 51, 7I
Freud, Sigmund, 186
Galileo, 6, 18-19, 23, 58, 62, 175
Gall, Franz, 61
Gassendi, Pierre, 20-21, 23, 26
Genetic problems, 104-5
Geometry) 26, 29, 44-45, 81, nI,
140-41, 188; Euclidean system, r41
Germany, 135, 154; logical empiri-
cism, 179; philosophy, 124, 154;
tradition, 105; writers, if
Gobineau, Joseph, lOr
God, 18, 22, 26, 95, 165; existence,
36-37, proof, 25; occasionalisrs, 27
Godwin, \iVilliam, 83
Graz, 118
Greece, Ancient, 58
224
INDEX
Haeckel, Ernst, IOI
Happiness, 84, 87; defined, 85
Hegel, Georg, 70, ]67, 19r
Hegelianism, 155. 170
Hcidegger, Manin, 78, 187. 208
B,einz, lO6
Beliocentrism, 16
Helmholtz, Hermann, r02
Helvetius, Claude, 83
Herbart, Johann, r r6, 122
Hick, John, 209
Historical prediction, 191
Historicism, 19[, 203
Historiography, 198
Historio:sophical systems, 45; posi-
tivism, 191-92
History: Camte, 67, 69-70; organic-
critical epochs, 50-5 I
Hitler, Adolf, '95
Hobbes, Thomas, r61, 215
Holistic techniques, 191
"How to Make OUf Ideas Clear,"
156, 158
Human species, characteristics, 215,
216
Hume, David, 31-38, 78, 83, 104,
In, 124. 151, 186, 212, tI7; char-
acteristics, 43-44; Comte, 72; de-
structive consequences of work,
38-46; empiricism, 81; l\1ill, 80;
Peirce, 159
Busserl, Edmund, 78, 80, lI8, 125,
I3I, 132, 2II-U; transcendental
ego, 203
Huyghens, Chric;tian, 58
Idealism, 130; transcendental, 155
Idealists, 13O
Ideas, 32-33, 2II
Identity, principle of, 15
Ideologies, 202
Immanence, 126, I27
Impressions, 32, 120' 128
Individuality, 71, IPi concept of,
121; Mill, 88-89
Induction, 214-15; vaUdating, 186
Inductive reasoning, 39, 41
Inequality, 46
Infallible knowledge, 14-15
Information, 3
Instincts, 163
Intellectual development. See Mind
Intelligence, r 89
Introduction to Experimental Med-
icine, 73, 74, 77
Introjection: critique, 19-14; prin-
ciple, 1I0-I4
Intuition, 109
Italy, prabJInatism, 171
James, William, ISS, 160-68; Dewey,
169, '70; Peirce, 16o, r61-62; pop
ularity of ideas, 168; utilitarian
criteria, 16r
Jaspers, Karl, 208
J esui tism, 1 65
Judgments, 166; analytic, 28, 29,
188; a priori, ISO; Dewey, 169;
existential, 24, 25, 28; logical em-
piricism, 176; (of) matters of act,
33; necessary, 28, 29; value, 7-8,
r68, 192-93, 202
Jupiter, 139
Kant, Immanuel, 86, 102, IOs-6, II7,
II 8, In, 130, 140, 161, anti-
Kantians, 193; Prolego'mena, 119;
thing-in-it.<;clf, 129
Kantianism, 124
Kepler, Johannes, 58
Knowledge: anti-metaphysical, 71;
antithetical concepts, 176; applica-
bility, 53-54; a prio1'i, 180; classes,
180; controlled experiments, 12;
criteria, 24; defining, 5; empir-
iocriti.cism, I06; explanatory-useful
opposition, 160; infallible, 14-fS";
intellectual autonomy, 59, 60; in-
terpretations, II, r6-I7, 42; laws
of development, 52-53; limita-
INDEX
225
tions, 30-3 I; meaning of, 40; Mill
theory, 80; "necessary," 2S; nomi-
nalist'>, 14; Ockharn concept, 13-
14; origin, J 34; positivism, 17, 212-
13; power, 12; pragmatism, r6-17,
42; prohibitions, 9; relativism, 118-
19; reliability, 1s-r6; Scholastic
theory, I4; SClentlStlC position,
liZ; sensationalist theOlY, 45; su-
perstition, 54-55; totality, 69;
transcendental, 21i; (the) Un-
Imowable, 94-96; value, 12, 60;
(of) values) I92
Kotarbinski, Tadeusz, 195
Kozlowski, E. M., 17 I
Laissez-faire principle, IOZ
Lamarck, Jean, 90
Lange, Friedrich, 102
Language, 63, us, 123-24, lSI; anal-
ysis, 174; cohesive, I94-95; con-
ceptual apparatus, 194; functions,
II6; limits, rSo; logical empiricism,
179; positivism, 183; pragmatic
aspect, I97; scientific, IS3
Lavoisier, Antoine, 59
Law of the Three States, 53-54, 68,
99
Laws, 68-69. 83" controls, 121; sci-
entinc, 61-62, J36-39, 142; univer-
sal, 56, 57
Leibniz, Gottfried, 23-24, 25-26, 177
Leipzig, University of, TOO
Lenin, Nikolai, I27-29, 130-31
Le Roy, Edouard, II7, 135, 136, I37,
138, I 46-47; Bergson, 148, 152;
Catholicism, 148-49; critics, 142
Libertine program, 22-23
Linguistic philosophy, 180
Ljtcrature, 106
Littre, Emile, 49, 68
Locke, John, 30, 178, 205
Logic, 80, f76, iSO, 199; defined, 187;
multivalent, 195; symbolic, 178,
194, 197, I99
Logical empiricism, 199-200, 212-13;
centers, 179; characteristics, 203-
4, decline, 198-99; ernpiriocriti-
cism, 203; features (positivistic),
humanities and world of
values, 190-95 i ideological aspects,
198-206; operational methodology,
195-97; "physicizing" of science,
r88-90; Poland, 193-97; problem-
solving, 195; program, 204; scien-
tific statements and metaphysics,
183-88; social functions, 178;
sources, See also Wittgen-
stein, Ludwig
Logical positivism, 180
Logic of Modern Physics) The, 196
London, Jack, JOO
Louis Napoleon, 51
Lukasiewicz, Jan, 175, 193-94, 195
Luther, Marrin, 16
Lwow-Warsaw school, 194,195
Mach, Ernst, lOS, 1I5, 118-25, 134,
135, 154, 187, 217; logical empirj-
cism, 178-79; Russian followers,
127-28; theory, 215
Maistre, Joseph de, 50
Malebranche, Nicolas, 114
Malthus, Thomas, 90
Manichaean doctrine, 218, 219
Manifestation-cause relationship, 3-4
Mankind, 63, 70-71
Marcel, Gabriel, 208
Marx, Karl, 73, 191
Marxism, I, 128, IF, 171
Materialism, 130; dichotomy, J69;
positivism, 151
Materialism and Empiriocriticism,
l27
Materialists, 9-10, 94
Mathematical sciences, 57, 58
Mathematicians, J79
Mathematics, 24, 33-34, 55, nI, 175-
76; positive stage, 58; Pythagoras,
55
226 INDEX
Matter, 4, 23; structure, 53
Manpenuis, Pierre, 114
Meaning(fulness), 196; criterion,
157-58, 159; humanistic sense, 198;
positivism- relationship, 182, J83-
84
Mechanics, birth of, 18-20
Medieval positivism, Xl-I8
"Melancholy of disbelief,!! 124
Mersenne, Marin, 20
l\.1essianic doctrines, 70
Metaphysicians, 21, 41
lVletaphysics, 3. 4, 7, 20, 26, 58, 122,
135, 166; Aristotelian, J 5; Bergson,
148 (see also Bergson); Bernard,
75; "certainty," 215, :n6, 217;
Dewey, 170; Enlightenment, 46;
James, 167; logical empiriclsm,
177, 183-88; modern treatises, II;
naturalistic, Z3i Ockharn, 13; posi-
tivism, 9. w, 181, 198, 207; prag-
matism, 155, 160-69; psychology,
8r; restrictions, IS0-8r; Scholastic,
23; spiritual, 147, ljI; stage, of
human mind, 55-56; systems, 40
Meta-science, 176-77, 197
Methodology, 195-97, 199
Middle Ages, 55
Mill, James, 83
Mill, John Stuart, 49,73,78-89, 101;
Comrc, 79; contributions, 102; em-
piricism, 8r; happiness, 87
Mind, llS; -feelings, relationship,
65-66; metaphysical stage, 55-56,
69; positive stage, 56-59;
cal stage, 54-55, 69
Mirecourt, Jean de, 14-I5
Miscs, Richard von, 124, 179
Moliere, 56
Monism, 101, 107, 109, 167; empirio-
criticism, J 26
Monotheism, 54, 55
Moore, G, E., 174-75, 192
Moral(s): psychology, 193; rules,
165; science, 58; values, 171
"Moral ce,rrainry," 216
Morality: ascetic, 82-83; defined,
85; science of, 65
Morris, Charles W" 197
Mussolini, Benito, 171
Mysteries, 18, 159
Mystics, 17
1\1 yths, 64, 65
Napoleon, 48
Nation-state, creation, 14
Naturalism, I72
Naturalists, 18
Natural science, 160, 210; aim, IO;
conventionalism, 134; nominalism,
12
Natural selection, theory of, 90
Natural theology, 14, 16
"Natural
ll
view of world, 131-)2,
133
Nature, 12, 18
Necessary judgments, 28, 29
Necessity, 23, 24, 25, 33-34
Neo-positivism(ists), 183, 192, 196.
See also Logical empiricism
Neurath, Otto, 184, 190; Empirical
Sociology, 192
Newton, Isaac, 56-5j, 58
Nicolas of ()resme, 16
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 105, 2 II
Nihilism, 2 I I
Nominalism(ists), 12, 15-16, 150,
159, 160; birth of, n; experimen-
talism, 13; faith, 16; logical em-
piricism, 177; Ockham, 14; rule
of, 5-7; Russell, 175; scientific
knowledge, 182; tendency, 12
Observation, 56
Occasionalism (ists), 27-28, 30
Occult entities, 3-4
Occult powers, 56
Occult sciences, 20
Ockham, William of, 13-14
"Ockharn's razor," 13, 14
INDEX
Ontology, 198, 203
Ol)en Society and Its Ene'Nzies, The)
191
Operational methodology, 195-97
Order, 3I, 32-
Ordering (classifying), 120
Origin of Species) The, 73
Osiander, Andreas, 160-6r
Oxford and Cambridge movement,
174
Oxford University, 12, 13
Pantheism, 18
Papacy, 14
Papin, Denis, 58
Papini, Giovanni, I71
Paris: nominalists, 14-15; University,
13, 16
Pascal, Blaise, 58, J 8 r, 209
Peirce, Charles S., 155-57; Dewey,
170; goal, 166; "I-low to Make Our
Ideas Clear," 156, 158; positivism.
155-60
Perception, 109
Peripatetic tradition of knowledge,
14
Personality, 126
Petzoldt, Joseph, 105
Phenomen:1, 56-57, 76, 19-10;
dieting, 190-91, 192
PhenomenaEsrn(ists), J6, 23, 24;
lightenment, 30; rules, 3, 5, II
Philosophers, 78, 170
Philosophes, 30
Philosophical detenninisrn, r 58
Philosophical 179-80,
182
Philosophy: American contribution,
154-55; analytical, ] 74-75; existen-
tialist, 187; goal, 107; laws, 91;
of life, 154; 168, 17 I; linguistic,
ISO; modern, 161; "parry prbci-
ple in,') 130; positivism, 183; prag-
matic, I 54ft.; romantic, 70;
ence relationship, 78, 107; task, 9I,
I74, 182, r83; vices, 155
Phrenology, 61
Physics, 6, 9, 29, 58, 134; Aristotelian,
16; Duhem on propositions, 146;
French conventionalists, 135; Ga-
lileo, I1)-20; language of, 188-90;
phenomenalist, 20; positive stage,
58; propositions, J35; theory
137
Pbysics of a Believer, 148
Physiology, "transcendentalt 97
Pius X, Pope, 149
Planck, Max, III
Planetary system, 16, 139, 140
Plato(nism), 5, 18
Pleasure-pain, 84, 87. 88, 108, 112
PJekhanov, Georgi, 127
Pluralism. r67
Poincare, Henri, JI7, 134, 135, 139,
140, 142, 146-47
Poland, 135; logical empiricism, 179,
193-97; pragmatism, I7l
Pope, the, 147
Popper, Karl, 75, 179, 184, 185-86;
works, 191
Positivism, 1-2, II-46, 104-33;
temporary, 202-3, 213, 2 I 4; con-
ventionalism, 135-36, 150-53; de-
finedj 9; dichotomy, J 69;
Enlightenment, 2<)-3 I; essentials,
25; ethics, 78-79; evolutionary, 8C)-
101, 212; father of (see Burne);
logical, 174 (see also Logical em-
piricism); main features, 100;
medieval, 12-d3; modern, 21, 17I-
72; nominalism, 5-7; over-all view,
1-10; phenomenalism, 3-5,
phy and historical development,
26; pragmatism, H, 154-73; radical
view, 209-10; rules, 3-<), IS; sci-
ence, 8-9, 73-78; stages, 10, 56-57;
targets of criticism, 190-<)I; tenets,
14-15, 23; theory of lmowledge,
17; value judgments. 7-8; vitalism,
>28 INDEX
153- See also Comte; Hurne and
Peirce
Positivist.<:;; bias,
207-8; contemporary, 187; radical,
154; rationalism, 198
Positivist Society, 49-50
Poverty of Historicism, Tbe, 191,
192
Power: intoxication of, 204;
edge, I2; Namre, 18, occult, 56
Practice, criterion of, 129-30
Pragmatism, 12, J3, 197; American,
154-55; consequences, J68-69; cri-
terion of meaning, r 57-58, 159;
empiriocriticism, 166; Europe, 171;
founders, 171--72; meaning. over-
all, 16<j-73; metaphysics, 160-69;
modernist style, 171--72; popular-
ity, 168; positivism, 154-73; Peirce,
155-60, philosophy of life, 168;
rudimentary, 16-17; term, 155;
truth, 164
Prag'ue, r I 8
Preconceptions, 123
Prediction, historical, 191
Prejudice, 64, lIO, 178
PrincilJia Mathematica, 175
Principles of Morals and Legislation
(Bentham), 81
Private property, 52, 63
Probability, 142--43; theory of, 53
Progress, 51, 52; concept of, 92 -93;
science of, 64
Protestantism, 209
"Psychic contents," I I
Psychologism, 80
Psychology, 58, 61, rI2j associ-
ational, 79, 168; behaviorist,
experimental, 197; of morals, 193
Psychophysical parallelism, 1 I I
Ptolemaic theory, 140
Quantum theory, 178
Questions, 193
Races, theory of, WI
Racism, 204; anthropology, 206
Radical relativism, 162
Rationalism, 176, 20S"; fundamental
rule, 178; logical empiricism, 177
Realism, 36, r 67, 18 I
Real.ity, 6, 18-19; without man, 129
Reason, 216-19; -faith controversy,
37-38; sufficient, principle of, ;6
Reasoning, 80, 81; infallible rules of,
15
Refonn: Saint-Simon, 48; of Soci-
ety, 79
Reformation, 17
Reichenbach, Hans, 179, 186, 188,
20
4
HReism," 195
Relarivism, of knowledge, n8-19
Relativity, theory of, 177, 178
Religjon, 63; Dewey, nQ; hostility
to, 103; of humanity (Comte), 47,
64-68, 70, 74; Humc, 36; idealists,
130; James, 165, man, 95; meta-
physics, 36; "natural," 44; place,
37; positivism, 64-67, 68; rational,
37-38; science, relationship, 21-22,
94--96; totemic, 54; truth, 14
Renaissance, 17-18, 19; naturalism,
19
Revelation, 28
Revolutions, 63-64, r 27
Romantics, the, 102, 103
Rules, 2-IO, {56, 165
Russell, Bertrand, 175. 179, 204, 210
Russia, 127
Saint-Simon, Henri de, 48
Saint-Simonians, 48, 50, 64, 67
Schiller, F, C, S" 171
Schlick, Moritz, 142, I79, 182
Scholasticism, 13, 15. 16, 17, 28,209;
theory of knowledge, 14
Science (s), 3; abstract, 7; classifica-
tion, 58; defincd\ 6, IJ9; Descartes,
23; determinism, 76; experimental
INDEX
control, 143; history of, II8ff. (see
also Law of the Three States);
Hume, 41; hypotheses, verifica-
tion, 142-44; idealization, 19, ide-
ological misuse, 206; interdepend-
ence, 60; laws, 34, 61-62, 136-
39, 142; Leibniz, 23; logical order,
58-59; meta-, 197, natural order,
S"8, 5'9; order, 44-4S"; pedagogical
order. 59; -philosophy, dividing
line, 78; "physicizing," 188-90;
positivism, r8-19, 22, 73-78; pur-
pose, 6, 75, 77. 81, 115; reform
(Comte), 53-62; religion, 1. I-H,
94-<)6; research, 69; rules, 21, 15
6
;
seven, 0S; of society, 50-5r; spe-
cialized, 73; "truth," 146; worship
of, 30
Scientific method, 8-9, 74, 75-76, 77-
7
8
Scientism, 78, 160, 173, 177-78, 205
"Self," 125
Sense-impressions, 108-<)
Sense perception, I92
Signs, theory of, 197
Simplicity, conventionalists, 143-44
Skepticism, 203
Skeptics, I r, 42
Social behavior, predicting, 61
"Social contract," 52
Social Darwinism, 204
Social DeHlOcracy, 127, 204
Social instinct, 52
Social life, 54
"Social physics," 60
Social reform, Comte, 50-52, 71
Social sciences, 134, 195; logical
piricism, I90-91, 192; -physical,
differences, 177-78
Society: "biologizing," 101; Comte,
50; evolution, 63-64; feudal, 51;
historiosophic schema, 50-5 I; his-
tory, 92-93; "organic" interpreta-
tion, 71; origin, 53; "positive," )1;
reality of, 63; reform, 79; science
of, 50-51; Spencer, 96
Sociology, S"0, 52, 58; Comtc, 62-64,
71; "dynamics," 64; methodologi-
cal principles, 68; positive stage,
59, 63; positivism, 190-<)1, 199;
"statics," 64; totality of Imowl-
edge, 69; universal science, 60; the
word, 62
Socrates, 164, 192
Solar system, 53, 63, 92
Solipsism, 181
the, 4, 22, 23, 109-10
Space, Ill; concept of, 140-41
Spencer, Herbert, 73, 89-101,
10
5,
II4, r67; Comte, 98-99; contribu-
tions, 102; social philosophy, 204
Spinoza, Baruch, 101
"Spirit," 4; of the age, 99, 102
Spiritualism (ists), 9-10, 18,94; posi-
tivism, lSI
"Springtime of Nations," 73
Stalin, Josef, 131
'IStatics," 64
Stoics, I I
Subjectivism, 104
Substance, 30, 35-36; concept of,
23, 36
Sufficient reason, principle of, 26
Superstition, 46, 54-)51 70, 79
Sweden, 179
System (Spencer), 73
Systerne de Polit.ique Positi'vc) 79
Syste'fJl of Logic (Mill),79
Tabula rasa ("blank slate"), 45
Alfred, 195, 212
"T echnocratic" culture, 202
Theocracy, 54
Theological state, of human
54-55
Theology, 182, 209
Theses on Feuerbacb, 128
"Things," 120-21
Tillich, Paul, 209
Time, 121
23 INDEX
Totalitarianism, 51, 71, 88 Value judgments, 7-8, 168, 19
2
-93,
Tractatus logico-phiioSOiJ/:JicZls, 179- 202
8r, 182
Transcendentalism, 102., 171
Trotsky, Leon, 127
<Truth, 128, 146; concept of, 204;
terion, 159; James, 161-65; neces-
sary, 215; Peirce, 159, 16r-62;
pragmatism, 164, 168, 2lO-II;
tivity, 128-29, J69-70; religious,
14; renunciation, 125-26, 131;
ence, 146; utilitarian interpreta-
tions, r61
Twardowski, Kazirl1ierz, 179, 193,
'94
Universal affection, 49
Universality, 7
Universal laws, 56, 57
Unknowable, the, 94-0
Usefulness, criterion, 160
Utilitarianism, 82-83, 85-89, 99, 160-
61; criteria, 85; principles, 8r-82.
Utilitarianism (Mill), 7J, 81
Utility: Mill, 83-85, 88-89; principle,
82-89; standards, 168-69
Utopianism, 50, 51, 52, 67, 71, 73, I78
Valentinov, 127
Valuation, 87-88, 89
200 LDBR
11/02/95 47505
Values, JI7, 16<)-70, 192, 2IIj logi-
cal empiricism, 202; moral, I7I;
romantic, 103; science, 193, world
of, 170--71, 190-95
Vaux, Clotilde de, 49
Verifiability (verification), 159;
nbasic" vs, "technical," 199-
20f
;
defined, J84-85; meaningfulness,
I83; partial, 185; principle of, HO;
rules, 185, 186, 199; scientific prin-
ciple, 136, r42-44
Vienna, IJ8, 179; Circle, 179, 193,
194, 195
Vitalism, 105, 153
Whitehead, Alfred North, 175
Will, the, 163; Divine, 15; freedom
of, 165
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 179-83, 2.07-
8, 209
Women, 49; guardian angel con-
cept, 65, 66
World, the, 6, 135, 167
World War I, 178, 179
W undt, Wilhelm, 106
Zola, Emile, lOG
Zurich, University of, 106

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The Alienation of Reason

A HISTORY OF POSITIVIST THOUGHT

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