Inquiry into Science: Its Domain and Limits by Richard Schlegel (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 781 exists. For the open-minded man can say he finds it wise to believe, if he is not certain that God necessarily exists. Here Sontag could have fruitfully pondered on Aquinas's analytical argument against Anselm concerning id quo maius cogitari nequit: what is self-evident in itself for Omniscience by virtue of ontological necessity need by no means be self-evident to us humans. (Some further probes, needed by students at any level, into "Divine Necessity" are offered in, e. g., Penelhum's book and my recent Faith and the Life of Reason). How Philosophy Shapes Theology should be divided into two quite different books. The emerging philosophical work should be thoroughly revised . It would be unhelpful and even unfair to ask students of the philosophy of religion to buy this book as it stands. Universite d'Ottawa University of Alberta Canada JoHN KING-FARLOW Inquiry into Science: Its Domain and Limits. By RICHARD ScHLEGEL. New York: Doubleday, 197~. Pp. 1~8. $4.95. In a brief 108 pages the author presents clearly and pleasantly an introduction useful to philosophers just beginning to think about science, or to scientists just beginning to reflect philosophically. The main theme of the author (a professor of physics at Michigan State) is the inherent limits of the scientific method and its great power within its limits. This he emphasizes in order to relate science more fruitfully to the humanities. He first shows the limits which result from the fact that science is a human activity in which nature is approached by alternative theories that man himself constructs with some limited purpose. Next he shows that scientific descriptions are always incomplete, although in regard to a defined domain we may be able to achieve the degree of completeness needed for our purposes. Then he develops the limitations of " atomic description " that result at the level of quantum phenomena because of the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty. Finally he discusses the cosmological limits that result from relativity and the vastness of space and time. Chapter 6, " Scientific Explanation " is the most interesting of the book, because here Schlegel shows that at the root of all these limits is the basic truth (which Goedel's Theorem has demonstrated for formal systems) that "self-reference places limitations on knowledge," i.e., the knower always enters into his knowledge of other things, yet no human knower completely knows himself. He then shows how humanistic knowledge supplements and 732 BOOK REVIEWS complements scientific knowledge. In the last chapter he gives a neat summary of his argument. The material of this work is sufficiently familiar to those acquainted with the current state of the philosophy of science, but it is " cool " presentation without technical jargon. For me it leaves unsatisfied the obvious questions: " What are the ontological implications of modem science? " The author is not a positivist, yet he does not move very far beyond the positivistic denial of ontology. BENEDICT M. AsHLEY, 0. P. The Institute of Religion and Human Development Texaa Medical Center HOU8ton, Texaa ...