Epistemology: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge

16. Human Science as Characteristically Human

293 Chapter 16 Human Science as Characteristically Human SYNOPSIS • In theory, very different versions of “natural science” are possible in a universe where very different sorts of extraterrestrial beings might possibly exist. • The reasoning that there must be one single science because there is one single world is gravely defective. • However, quantitative analysis of the situation indicates that our particular human version of natural science may well be something unique to our particular situation. • Moreover, it is quite wrong to think that potentially different versions of science are all positioned along one single developmental route. • Natural science as we know it may well be—indeed presumably is—a characteristically human enterprise, specifically reflecting our particular manner of exploiting the material and intellectual resources at our disposal. THE POTENTIAL DIVERSITY OF “SCIENCE” To what extent does the involvement of our specifically human effort and action condition the character of our natural science? Does our science as a product reflect our particular modus operandi? It is instructive to consider this issue through the perspective of the questions whether an astronomically remote civilization might be scientifically more advanced than ourselves. For the seemingly straightforward question about the possibility of scientifically more advanced aliens turns out on closer inspection to involve considerable complexity. And this complexity relates not only to the actual or possible facts of the situation , but also—and crucially—to theoretical questions about the very ideas or concepts that are at issue here. To begin we must confront the problem of just what it is for there to be another science-possessing civilization. Note that this is a question that we are putting—a question posed in terms of the applicability of our term “science.” It pivots on the issue of whether we would be prepared to call certain of their activities —once we came to understood them—as engaging in scientific inquiry, and whether we would be prepared to recognize the product of these activities as constituting a state of science—or a branch thereof. A scientific civilization is not merely one that possess intelligence and social organization, but one that puts these resources to work in a certain very particular sort of way. This consideration opens up the rather subtle issue of priority in regard to process versus product. We must decide whether what counts for a civilization’s “having a science” is primarily a matter of the substantive content of their doctrines (their belief structures and theory complexes) or is primarily a matter of process, and thus of the aims and purposes with which their doctrines are formed. As regards content, this turns on the issue of how similar their scientific beliefs are to ours. And a look at our own historical evolution indicates that this is clearly something on which we would be ill advised to put much emphasis at the very outset. After all, the speculations of the nature-theorists of pre-Socratic Greece, our ultimate ancestor in the scientific enterprise, bear precious little resemblance to our present-day sciences; neither does contemporary physics bear all that much doctrinal resemblance to that of Newton. So it emerges as clearly more appropriate to give prime emphasis to matters of process and purpose. Accordingly, the question of these aliens “having a science” is to be regarded as turning not on the extent to which their substantive findings resemble ours, but on the extent to which their purposive project resembles ours—of determining that we are engaged in the same sort of inquiry in terms of the sorts of issues being addressed and the ways in which they are going about addressing them. The issue accordingly is at bottom not one of the substantive similarity of their scientifically formed beliefs to ours, but one of the functional equivalency of the projects at issue in terms of the quintessential goals that define the scientific enterprise as what it is: explanation, prediction, and control over nature. It is this issue of teleology that ultimately defines what it is for those aliens to have a science. This perspective enjoins the pivotal question: To what extent would the functional equivalent of natural science built up by the inquiring intelligences of 294 Cognitive Limits and the Quest for Truth an astronomically remote civilization be bound to resemble our science in substantive content-oriented regards? In considering this issue, one soon comes to realize that there is an enormous potential for diversity here...