4 October 1959. Cogitations

In spite of the advances of science in recent years, the methods employed in scientific work are under critical scrutiny. The moral questioning amongst scientists themselves of the use to which scientific knowledge is being put is scarcely relevant to discussion of the methods themselves, yet it has contributed to that discussion.

In philosophy the question is not new though it is unnecessary to go back earlier than Hume to find the origins of the present controversies. The problem as it appears to the philosopher has been stated by Prichard (Knowledge and Perception, p. 69). He says,

Though we are aware that any knowledge at which we arrive is the result of a process on our part, we do not reflect on the nature of the process – at any rate in any systematic way – and make it the object of a special study. But sooner or later knowledge of our mistakes and the desire to be sure that we are getting the genuine article, i.e. something which is really knowledge, lead us to reflect on the process … in the end we find ourselves having to ask whether we are capable of knowing at all and are not merely under the illusion of thinking that we can know.

In the natural sciences the quantum mechanical theories have disturbed the classical concept of an objective world of facts which is studied objectively. And the work of Freud has at the same time excited criticism that it is unscientific because it does not conform to the standards associated with classical physics and chemistry; it constitutes an attack on the pretensions of the human being to possess a capacity for objective observation and judgement by showing how often the manifestations of human beliefs and attitudes are remarkable for their efficacy as a disguise for unconscious impulses rather than for their contribution to knowledge of the subjects they purport to discuss.

But, it may be argued, do not the facts discovered as a result of the application of scientific methods constitute a proof that the methods employed –