Curt Ducasse, Philosophy as a Science, 1941
PART II
The Subject Matter and Method of Philosophy
CHAPTER EIGHT
How Is the Subject Matter of Any Given Systematic Inquiry Defined?
A NUMBER of recent hypotheses concerning the nature of philosophy and the method appropriate to its tasks have now been reviewed and criticized. The time has come to state the hypothesis the writer himself would submit.
I. Philosophy a Search for Knowledge. -- In common with most of those already examined, the hypothesis I propose takes for granted to begin with that philosophy is a knowledge-seeking enterprise. In this respect, therefore, it holds that philosophy resembles the natural and other sciences, and itself is, or seeks to be, a science. This means that its utterances, like theirs, claim to be in contrast with those of poets, priests, and prophets; that its basic function is not to impart feelings or to edify or to exhort, but to enlighten; that the task of its professors is to teach, not to preach; that the philosopher, like the scientist, is not a pastor but an investigator.
The knowledge philosophy seeks will, it is true, have bearings on man's ways of conducting his thoughts, his feelings, and his actions, for that knowledge is in part of the kind itself called wisdom and in part of the kind that furnishes the basis for a wisdom more secure than is otherwise to be had. But the philosopher's wisdom, so far as he has such knowledge, is not to be thought of as somehow innate in his particular soul or as vouchsafed privately to him by special divine revelation. Rather, it derives from scientific study by him of the facts that are the subject matter distinctive of philosophy; and his search for knowledge is neither less nor more nor otherwise dependent on contact with concrete social or moral problems than the search for chemical or physical knowledge is dependent on contact with concrete engineering problems.
The knowledge philosophy seeks, moreover, is not knowledge in a different or less rigorous sense of the term than the knowledge sought by the other sciences. It is knowledge as contrasted with guesses, articles of faith, snap judgments, vague or unsupported opinions, prejudices, and wish-born beliefs. From this it follows that the method of philosophy must be no less scientific than that of any other knowledge-seeking enterprise, for "scientific" means nothing more and nothing less than knowledge-yielding.
But to say that the method of philosophy must be scientific does not imply either that philosophy must seek to borrow and to build upon the results of the other sciences, or that knowledge-yielding method will, as applied to philosophical problems, take the same specific forms as when applied to the problems of, for instance, physics or biology or even mathematics. For the specific devices which make for the attainment of knowledge in each of these sciences are dictated by the specific nature of the subject matter to be dealt with, and vary even as between one and another of these sciences. We may therefore expect that this will be the case also with philosophy. Thus, when the assertion is made here that the method of philosophy must be as scientific as that of these other sciences, what is meant is that philosophy must formulate its propositions with the same regard for unambiguity, must be as scrupulous in its verification of them, and must inquire into their consequences and presuppositions as systematically as does any other science. For these are characteristics that any inquiry, no matter into what, must have if it is to have any claim to being called scientific.
It may be urged, of course, that ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, etc., are not truly sciences because their procedure actually lacks these very characteristics. But to this I should reply that although it has indeed lacked them in considerable measure, these sciences are as yet only in their infancy, and that the infancy of all the sciences has been marked by methodological blundering. What defines a possible genuine science and distinguishes it from an impossible and necessirily spurious one is the existence both of a subject matter distinct from that of any other science, and of a method by which knowledge, properly so called, could be obtained about this subject matter if that method were employed. In the case of chemistry, for instance, the subject matter it now studies always existed, and the methods it now uses always were methods capable of yielding knowledge of it. This was true even in the days when both these methods and this subject matter were only being groped for under the name of alchemy. Phrenology, on the other hand, probably is not a possible science because the correlations that constitute its assumed subject matter, viz., the correlations between the protuberances of the skull and the mental and emotional "faculties" of man, would seem to be in fact nonexistent.
Thus what is implied by calling ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, etc., sciences is not that they have already won knowledge in amounts comparable with, say, chemistry, or already have to a comparable extent acquired mastery of their appropriate methods, but only that, unlike phrenology, they are capable of becoming genuine sciences. This only means that (a) what they seek is knowledge, properly so called (b) concerning a subject matter that really exists and is distinctive of them, and (c) that there is a method, as yet not adequately mastered by them, which if it were employed would yield genuine knowledge concerning their subject matter.
2. The Claim of Philosophy to a Subject matter Distinctively Its Own. -- A question as to the structure of the hydrogen atom is, by common consent, not a philosophical but a physical question. And, contrariwise, a question as to the relation of philosophy to natural science, or as to the difference between falsity and error and the relation of each to truth, would commonly be classed as a philosophical question and not as one belonging to any of the natural sciences. But since employment of a method truly scientific cannot, as already pointed out, be what distinguishes these sciences from philosophy -- while, as this example shows, we do distinguish between questions belonging to them and questions belonging to philosophy -- the basis of distinction can only consist in a difference of subject matter. What then is the subject matter distinctive of philosophy?
To answer this difficult question it will be useful as a first step to ask ourselves what general form an answer to a question of this kind necessarily takes in any other case -- for instance, in the easier case of the natural sciences. But, to forestall misunderstandings, let us agree at the outset thar by the "formal" sciences will be meant pure logic and pure mathematics, and by the "natural" sciences, all the sciences that study what has commonly been called nature or the material world. The latter will thus comprise, for instance, the physical sciences -- physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc., and also the biological sciences, including not only the zoological and botanical sciences, but also psychology of the physiological and behavioristic kinds. The natural sciences, moreover, will include also the social sciences -- sociology, economics, political economy -- in so far as these are treated as studies of the behavior and practices of men in the mass or in social situations. On the other hand, in so far as the social sciences attempt to discover which social, political, or economic institutions are good, or are best under given circumstances, I would class them as applied ethics and therefore with the philosophical sciences. As "mental" sciences I would class psychology of the introspective kind, and other sciences, if any, also based on introspection but dealing with questions not ordinarily considered in what has gone by the name of introspective psychology.
History is usually classed with the social sciences, as concerning itself with human societies or human activities in their time dimension, but there is of course also such a thing as the history of the solar system, of a given tree or a given river, etc. Thus, "history" is not the name of any particular subject matter, but rather of a dimension of the study of anything that exists in time. For example, we may study the history of the earth, for the earth exists in time; but we may also study the history of the study of the earth, that is, the history of geology; or the history of mathematics, of philosophy, of art, etc., for all these human activities extend through time. On the other hand, the historian who may seek to explain, for example, the decline of the Roman Empire, is not relieved of the need for this purpose of a knowledge of, among other things, the laws of economics or of social psychology, by the fact that the events he deals with happened long ago and are known with much less detail than are contemporary events of a similar kind. For in so far as he attempts explanation or generalization, he is speaking in his capacity (if he has any) as economist, political scientist, social psychologist, etc., rather than in his capacity as historian -- although, of course, the facts he explains or generalizes are facts that he or others have ascertained in their capacity as historians.{1}
3. Primitive and Derivative Facts. -- Returning now to the question of the subject matter that distinguishes the group of sciences we call the natural sciences from other scientific inquiries, to say as we did above that what they study is nature or the material world only brings up the question as to what exactly differentiates "nature" from whatever we contrast it with. And it is not easy to find a definition of nature that will apply equally to things seemingly as heterogeneous as light and heat, the mechanisms of heredity, the mating displays of the Australian bower bird, the varieties of subatomic particles, the relation between supply and demand, the differences in basal metabolism among different races, etc., all of which belong to the realm which the natural sciences investigate. A solution of the difficulty becomes discernible only when it occurs to us to make a certain highly important distinction -- namely, that between what we may call the primitive facts of a science and its derivative facts.
The primitive facts of a given science are those which, for it, are beyond question. They are, on the one hand, the facts about which the science asks its very first, most elementary questions, and on the other hand, the facts -- of the same general kind -- to which the science ultimately appeals in testing the validity of its hypotheses. The primitive facts of a science are thus facts of the kind with which its inquiries originate and also terminate. An example of a fact which for physics is primitive, and which originates inquiry, would be the rising and falling of the tide. That the tide does rise and fall is perceptually obvious at many places and is therefore not questioned; but about it many questions occur to the physicist. Other facts primitive in the same sense for a physicist would be, on certain occasions, that a given string is stretched; that he plucks it; that a sound occurs; that a certain stretched string is longer than a certain other; that certain metal filings are clinging to a certain metal bar; that a certain body is moving, etc. On many occasions the physicist would regard such facts as established beyond question by ordinary perceptual observation; but many questions about them would arise in his mind.
On the other hand, examples of primitive facts functioning in certain cases as terminative rather than as originative of physical inquiries would be that a certain pointer is at a certain place on a graduated scale; that on a certain occasion no sound occurs when a given bell is struck; that on a certain occasion two falling bodies do not reach the ground at the same time, etc. Obviously, no primitive fact is intrinsically originative or intrinsically terminative. The distinction is purely functional, being only a matter of whether a question is being asked about, or on the contrary answered by, a given primitive fact. The same primitive fact might thus function at one time as originative of an inquiry and at another time as terminative of a different inquiry.
The derivative facts of a given science, on the other hand, are those discovered as a result of the attempt to answer, about its primitive facts, the kind of questions that distinguish an enterprise of the sort called scientific from enterprises of other sorts. These questions concern relations of the given facts to one another, and, more specifically, relations capable of providing a basis for inferences from given facts to other facts in the field of the given science. The nature of the problems formulated in the questions distinctive of the kind of enterprise called a science may thus be described broadly by saying that they are problems of analysis and synthesis of the facts with which the given science is concerned.
The problem of discovering an empirical law, for instance, is a problem both of analysis and of synthesis. Starting with several groups of primitive facts, the discovery requires, on the one hand, abstraction from all except certain common features of the facts of a given group, and, on the other hand, detection of a connection or correlation between such features of one group and similarly abstracted features of the other groups. Both the connection or correlation constituting the law, and the abstracted features themselves, which it relates, are thus derivative from -- i.e., were implicitly present in -- the primitive facts among which they wac detected. Words such as temperature, weight, size, shape, motion, velocity, acceleration, etc., are examples of names of derivatives from certain groups of physical primitives; and very early in the development of physics the questions asked are directly about facts already derived from the physical primitives, and are thus only indirectly about the latter. The attempt at further analysis and synthesis of such derivative facts as these operations have already brought to light leads sooner or later to the construction of theories. These are devices which, through the postulation, as implicit in the primitive facts, of features not describable in them by abstractive observation, permit the carrying of the task of analysis and synthesis farther than is possible through direct observation alone, no matter how minutely discriminative. For the postulated features make possible the formulation of laws themselves making possible the prediction of certain primitive facts which, if later observed to be as predicted, contribute to validate -- or if not as predicted, suffice to invalidate -- those laws. Additional examples of terms, again from physics, which themselves name derivative facts and which enter into the formation of such derivatives as laws and theories, would be magnetic field, atom, proton, electric charge, electric potential, energy, etc. The distinction between the originative and terminative roles, already made among primitive facts, applies to derivative facts also, but only in a relative and proximate sense, not in an absolute and ultimate one as in the case of primitive facts.
4. Definition of the Subject Matter Distinctive of a Given Science. -- In the light of the distinction now made between the primitive and the derivative facts of a given science, we may say that the subject matter distinctive of a given science consists of all facts that are primitive for it, plus any facts analytically or synthetically derivative from these and about which further problems of analysis or synthesis may arise. Or, because the derivative facts of a given science can be said to belong to its subject matter only because they are derivative from the primitives of specifically that science, we can say more briefly that what ultimately distinguishes one science from others is the natue of its primitive facts.
With this distinction as between the primitive and the derivative facts of a given science we may compare Loewenberg's distinction between pre-analytical and post analytical data.{2} I cannot decide whether or not my distinction is essentially identical with his, but it is at least similar. His distinction emphasizes analysis to the neglect of synthesis, but he has since indicated that this was no part of its essential intent.{3} In the later paper, however, he rewords his disrinction as one between "data of acquiescence" and "data of transformation,'' and this does not seem to be the same distinction as the one I intend when I speak of primitive and derivative facts, for the latter are not transformations of the former in the sense -- apparently intended by Loewenberg -- in which a statue can be described as a transformation of a marble block. For creation or invention is one thing, and discovery is another; and derivative facts are not made by man but discovered by him through analysis and synthesis. What is begotten by man through these operations is not changes in the facts initially given{4} but changes in man's knowledge. A man's knowledge -- i.e., the fact that he has knowledge and what its extent is -- is indeed in part an "artifact of reason"; but the facts themselves which he knows are not artifacts of reason but discoveries (in part) of reason. The only exception would be the facts also known by him which consist of the very instruments of reasoning (e.g., logical or mathematical) that he himself has created.
The illustrations of primitive and derivative facts given in the preceding section serve to call attention to something very important to notice in the present connection. It is that not only in physics but also in any other science the overwhelming majority of the propositions asserted as results of its inquiries are explicitly and directly not about its primitive but about its derivative facts; and because of this it may easily seem not only to the outsider but still more to the practitioner of the science that such facts as are constituted by the derivatives are what the science is really about. But just because these are known at all only derivatively from the primitive (and more vulgar) facts, and indeed, as noted above, have claim to belong to the given science only because they are derivative from the primitives of specifically that science, these primirives, although seldom explicitly mentioned in the assertions embodying the results reached by the science, are nevertheless what all its assertions are ultimately about. That is, these assertions, although directly and exlicitly about derivatives, are indirectly and implicitly about the primitives, in the sense that they are analytic or synthetic "functions" having the primitives as "arguments." This is shown by the fact that any of the derivative assertions -- let us say the assertion ''if A, then B'' -- can be expressed in some such form as: "Primitives P, P', P'', etc., are such that analysis or synthesis of them (in such and such a way) exhibits in them a constituent which is such that if A, then B."
This means that the subject matter distinctive of a given science is, in ultimate analysis, defined by the very ones among its facts which it least often explicitly mentions in the statements of its results. To remember this will help us in our attempt to discern the nature of the primitive facts distinctive of philosophy.
[Table of Contents] [Chapter 9]
Notes {1} Sciences such as the social sciences or, in certain of its aspects, astronomy, in which experimentation is wholly or mostly impracticable, are much more closely dependent than others on the history of their objects for the facts on which to base their inductive generalizations. The facts, for example, on which Kepler had to depend for his discovery of the laws of planetary motion consisted chiefly of a historical record, viz., the record made by Tycho Brahe of the positions at given times of the planet Mars.[Back]
{2} Journal of Philosophy, 24, No. 1 (Jan., 1927). [Back]
{3} "Artifacts of Reason," University of California Publications in Philosophy, 21 (1931).[Back]
{4} Cf.: "The facts of nature undergo transformation by taking the impress of man's refined concepts and categories," "Artifacts of Reason," p. 54.[Back]
[Table of Contents] [Chapter 9]