Scientific Reporting, Imagination, and Neo-Aristotelian Realism

The Thomist 68 (2004): 531-43 SCIENTIFIC REPORTING, IMAGINATION, AND NEO-ARISTOTELIAN REALISM MICHAEL W. TKACZ Gonzaga University Spokane, Washington IN 1258,ALBERTTHE GREAT presided over a formal disputation at the Dominican studium in Cologne devoted to questions arising out ofAristotle's De animalibus. Preserved for us in the reportatio of friar Conrad of Austria, these quaestiones treat a series of zoological problems arranged in the order of Aristotle's books.1 In the nine questions corresponding to book 1 of the De partibus animalium, Albert departs from his strictly zoological observations to consider the proper method to be used by the zoological investigator in his research. The first of these methodological questions is whether scientific research is a twofold process of reporting and explanation.2 In the course of defending an affirmative answer to this question, Albert makes it clear that the ultimate explanatory goal of scientific research presupposes a "narrative" or descriptive phase of investigation. Without scientific description or reporting, there is nothing to 1 Quaestiones super De animalibus in AlbeTti Magni Opera Omnia (Miinster im Westphalia: Aschendorff, 1955)(= ed. Colon) 12:281-309. This text should not be confused with Albert's longer paraphrastic commentary on the De animalibus edited by Hermann Stadler and published in Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Miinster im Westphalia: Aschendorff, 1916 and 1920)(= ed. Stadler), Bd. 15-16. On the date and order of these works, see James A. Weisheipl, "Albert's Works on the Natural Sciences (libri naturales) in Probable Chronological Order," in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980, ed. James A. Weis_heipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1'980), 572 [no. 11] and 572-74 [no. 13]. 2 Quaestiones super De animalibus XI, q. 1 (ed. Colon., 12:218.11-62). Albert uses the terms narratio and causarum assignatio: "•.• utrum in scientia sit modus processivus duplex: narrativus et causarum assignativus" (ed. Colon., 12:218.14-16). 531 532 MICHAEL W. TKACZ explain, for there is nothing begging to be understood in terms of its causes.3 Albert's remarks draw attention to a crucial issue in the Aristotelian understanding of scientific method: the relationship of scientific reporting and explanation. Explanation, of course, is always in terms of demonstration of the cause, especially propter quiddemonstration. Demonstration, however, is the ultimate goal of the scientific endeavor and as such must be the satisfaction of something, a response to a need. This is why Aristotelians understand scientificresearch as a problem-solving activity and maintain that before one can begin to solve the problem, one must know what the problem is and possess a clear articulation of it as a problem calling for solution. Scientific reports provide such an articulation through their description of the subject under study; without them, one cannot even begin the attempt at explanation. There is, however, more to scientific reporting than this. If such descriptive reports are to be the first step in an explanatory process leading to causal demonstration, then they must treat their subject matter in ways that suggest probable causal explanations. This means that the function of such reports cannot be limited to the setting of puzzles or the raising of questions. They must also, through their dialectical form as measurement, quantitative description, taxonomy, field-studies, systematic observation, or controlled experimentation, bring to light the likely explanatory candidates that can solve the puzzle or answer the question. This is why medieval naturalists, such as Albert, held that the predemonstrative phase of scientific research is so important. It provides the necessary link between the initial encounter of the investigator with the subject matter and his eventual grasp of its cause in demonstration.4 1 Quaestiones super De animalibus XI. q. 1 (eel Colon., 12:218.45-50): "Et ideo Philosophus, tanquam sapientissimus et expertissimus in scientiis, in scientia ista procedit primo narrando etsecundo narratorum causas inquirendo etassignando, ostendens, quod nos similiter debemus facere, vel annuens." 4 See Quaestiones superDe animalibus XI, q. 2 (ed. Colon., 12:219.11-25) where Albert argues that, while scientific knowledge results from the demonstration of the cause, description is also necessary as it provides the supposition of the effect to be known as caused. Albert provides...