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6. Healing the Wound
- University of Arkansas Press
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Chapter 6 HEALING THE WOUND Objective Knowledge in a Life wiValues Socrates related virtue to knowledge. While he did not mean knowledge about physical reality, I am willing to take the additional step: what we know about physical reality must affect our way of life. A certain morality is connected with our knowledge of reality, a certain conduct is compatible with its nature and with our understanding of it. Responding to the challenge of physical reality can guide the mind, as experience is translated into a basis on which one can act. This is the connection between epistemology , ontology, and ethics: if we know and understand, we can choose to be good. I will summarize again Monod’s view () of the effects of science on the traditional values of society: Traditional societies based their social order on myths, “animist ontogenies,” religious systems, that justified human values in terms of explanations of the nature of things and the origin of the world. By assuming a divine purpose in the universe, they gave meaning to life. By giving an account of why things are the way they are, they were able to dictate rules of conduct that were in accordance with the body of knowledge that they purported to afford. Thus, knowledge and values derived from a single source, and the rules that they established formed a consistent set. When the infallibility of the animist ontogenies was shattered by scientific objectivity, the very foundation of social order, of the meaning of life, and a life with values seemed dissolved. By attacking the ontology of the animist theories—their astronomy, biology, physics, and chemistry—science inevitably also attacked their values. 1SCHÄFER_PAGES:SCHÄFER PAGES 4/29/10 11:14 AM Page 95 Thus arose the “lie at the root of the sickness of spirit” of modern societies as they cling desperately to values and myths whose foundations have been destroyed by the principle of objectivity at the base of technology. Monod’s conclusion is that a radical reappraisal of the traditional values and the rejection of many of them is unavoidable. Such a reappraisal can now be undertaken, for a life with values and meaning is no longer in conflict with the principles which serve us as the true source of knowledge. It is not the rejection of traditional values that is needed now, but the reconstruction of a foundation on which they can be based. e Signicance of the Epistemological Paradox The epistemological paradox (Monod, ) is the contrast between the admission of teleonomy in the biosphere and the postulate— at the basis of science—that nature is objective. Adherence to objectivity precludes any reference to final causes and purpose in nature. Monod’s paradox: Scientific objectivity forces us to conclude that living organisms incorporate purpose, versus: objective science must exclude purpose from its descriptions of nature. Monod’s presentation of the matter is particularly instructive: There is no physical paradox in invariant reproduction . . . : invariance is bought at its exact thermodynamic price, thanks to the perfection of the teleonomic apparatus . . . This apparatus is entirely logical, wonderfully rational, and perfectly adapted to its purpose: to preserve and reproduce the structural norm. And it achieves this, not by transgressing physical laws, but by exploiting them . . . It is the very existence of this purpose , at once both pursued and fulfilled by the teleonomic apparatus , that is the miracle. Miracle? No, . . . there is really no paradox or miracle, but a flagrant epistemological contradiction. The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words the systematic denial that “true” knowledge can be reached by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes—that is to say, of “purpose.” . . . the postulate of objectivity is consubstantial with science, and has guided its prodigious development for three centuries. It is 1SCHÄFER_PAGES:SCHÄFER PAGES 4/29/10 11:14 AM Page 96 [3.89.163.156] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 14:25 GMT) impossible to escape it, even provisionally or in a limited area, without departing from the domain of science itself. Objectivity nevertheless obliges us to recognize the teleonomic character of living organisms, to admit that in their structure and performance they decide on and pursue a purpose . Here . . . lies a profound epistemological contradiction. In fact the central problem of biology lies with this very contradiction , which, if it is only apparent, must be resolved, or else proved to be radically insoluble...