SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES: THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE' W. F. FORBES AND G. M. STORY Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
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WILL be generally agreed that one of the central human problems has been, and is, the problem of knowledge-how to gain it, or how to use it. More recently the problem has posed itself as a division in knowledge, a divorce between the humanities and the sciences, distressing, even dangerous, in its implications. It is an urgent problem, and one which has been thoroughly befogged by the specialist's habit of viewing i t with the bias of his own discipline. The relation between different subjects in groups like the sciences and humanities is more readily evident and has recently been discus~ed,~ but the relations between these latter groups appear to raise difficulties. I n this paper it is proposed to scrutinize some current attitudes of humanists and scientists toward one another and toward their respective disciplines; t o indicate in what sense these attitudes are unsatisfactory; and finally to suggest a restatement of the problem as t o where, if anywhere, the dividing- line should be drawn.
CrnRENT ATTITUDES
The common attitude toward the relation of the different branches of knowledge may be indicated descriptively in the form of a tree. On the one hand we have the humanities, a group of studies made up of the languages, literature, the fine arts, moral philosophy and logic, this last branching forth near the second group, the sciences, of which mathematics approaches i t most nearly. Next to this latter are placed the natural sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, and finally the social and psychological sciences, the last veering again towards the humanities. These groups are not, of course, complete; nor is this arrangement acceptable t o everyone. For example, some mathematicians might prefer to regard their subject as an art rather than a science, and the term "1inguist.i~science" suggests that not all philologists think of themselves as humanists. Nevertheless, the suggested grouping would probably be widely acceptable. One formulation of the problem is provided by the common assertion of humanists that their disciplines are concerned with "the intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual life." And this hringsas.immediately to an almost obviously unsatisfactory attitude of the humanist towards the sciences, namely, the implicit belief that things of intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual value are the mono~olv - - of the humanist. that is. of the uerson
' This paper w.m presented, in an earlier draft, before the St. John's (NFLD) Branch of the Humanities Assooiation of Canads. --~.
FULLER, E. C., J. CHEM. EDUC., 34,110 (1957).
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specializing in one of the fine arts, or language, in history, or literature, and so on. Though not always put so rudely, this is not the least uncommon motive for the separatist spirit among the humanists, one which begets so much facile criticism of science as "materialistic." Science assumes the role of a narrow-minded, intent, and short-sighted search after techniques and results, hostile to what is best in the traditional cultures. More responsibly the humanist tends, very often, to decry the scientific method because it is unsuitable for investigating many, frequently the most worthwhile, things in life. To some humanists it appears that the scientist, flourishing his techniques and methods, regards these as adequate for the investigation of "non-scientific" problems. It is as though a man were to try to use a mousetrap (something small implied) t o catch an elephant (implied something larger, and perhaps more important). The suggested reason why the scientist should want t o attemut something so obviously foolish is explained by the atti&de: "Well, but it is such an excellent mousetrap!" In a sense this is how many of us have been taught to think. We differentiate between scientific truth, artistic truth, and spiritual truth. We think of a scientist as intentionally and a t great pains shutting himself out from his experiments in his quest for objectivityconsciously detaching himself from data which he is trying to correlate in an ever-increasing pattern or body of knowledge. This is a different approach and quite distinct from that of the artist, expressing himself in music, or putting his personal vision on canvas. Not all people would agree that a landscape appears t o them as it appears, for example, to an expressionist painter, although perhaps some people would like t o be able to see it that way. Nevertheless, it will he a presentation of what the artist sees, and it will be different from what the scientist, qua scientist, will regard as true. I n the same way, in the highest form of personal relations, we try t o knov one another with none of the conscious detachment of the scientist. Since most of our intense sorrows and joys come from a knowledge of spiritual or artistic-at any rate nonscientific-truths, it follows that they are more important. Such, at any rate, is a common humanist view. It is, moreover, held not infrequently by scientists too. But more commonly, many scientists view the humanities no less irresponsibly than our above-mentioned humanists. Perhaps on the lowest level is the view that only truths which can be verified obiectivelv " bv " indeuendent observers are really trustworthy, and that, objectivity JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
heing the exclusive monopoly of the sciences, in their disciplines lie the best means of increasing human happiness. Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough Only hecau8e we do not know enough. When Science has discovered somethine more.' We shall he happier than we were befoFe.
In this view, the humanist, priding himself on his ignorance of the sciences, is a complacent and ungrateful wretch. His indifference t o the possibilities and accomplishments of science is regarded as callous, since it is he who refuses to take an interest in things which promise, for example, to alleviate the poverty and misery of life in underdeveloped countries, where the mean annual income is about $50 and the life-expectancy 35 years. The fact that our humanist may very well live his threescore yearsand ten in relativematerial comfort is a boon he enjoys largely as a result of scientific discoveries in the fields of medicine and industrial power. His attitude is therefore seen as a scarcely rational flight from reality. The social responsibility implicit in this attitude of the scientist commands respect. Perhaps such ultimately crude scientific optimism can he legitimately held, even after the destruction and threats of applied science in our generation. However, a point has certainly been reached when scientists would do well to stress their inherent unity with the other great humane studies by dissociating themselves from narrowly materialistic philosophies and come to see it as their duty to make the true character of science better understood. Another argument might run this way. Since culture is well defined as the characteristic attainment of a people, or of a social order, and the particular features of such attainments, and since the modern social order derives its most characteristic features from scientific achievements, a cultured person must he aware of these achievements if he is t o justify his claim to he cultured. The hypothetical scientist may go on t o say that a claim to heing cultured will therefore lie at least in understanding the distinguishing features of the scientific approach t o knowledge and experience as well as those of the humanities. He may accept the division into science and the humanities, hut he will perhaps argue that the onus lies on the humanist to broaden his vision, chiefly because the language of science places a substantial barrier which it is the task of the humanist to master. THE UNSATISFACTORY NATURE OF THE PRESENT SITUATION
All these views command some sympathy, though in varying degrees. But all of them are, in one vital respect, unsatisfactory: they place too much emphasis on the divided nature of knowledge. Indeed, they accept the division implicitly. But this division no longer corresponds entirely with the facts. Knowledge in practice is not simply a matter of discovering new facts, new techniques, new synthesis of facts: knowledge must also more and more imply the challenge and issues posed by new discoveries. Furthermore, oversimplified divisions of knowledge into "branches" fail to do justice to the scope and complexity of any subject; few isolated fields of study can profitably be investiVOLUME 34, NO. 12, DECEMBER, 1951
gated without looking over the edges. To take one extreme example, he would be a rash man who attempted to group the varieties of religious experience and activity under any label which did not imply the whole activity of the whole man, not simply his "humane" and "scientific" faculties. I n the second place, we have been hearing too much of the supposedly different "scientific," "philosophical," and "artistic" modes of "knowing." Perhaps they are not so far apart after all. A recent writer, discussing the conceptual worlds of the physicist and the logician, suggests that in both cases the ultimate purpose . . .is the production of a kind of "vision," the intuition of an ordered complexity in a given material: in the case of the logician the material is linguistic relations and the end product is a logical picture; in the case of the Scientist the meterid of intuition is physical entities. Professor Ayer (the English philosopher) tells us that our claim8 to knowledge rest on the logical procedures which we actually follow, but even so the logical procedures are retrospectively seen to be "valid" in so far as they form the composition of the picture. Quad visum place1 in all cases, even though the vision, whatever it is, can please only those who have learnt to see it.'
Lest this seem too aesthetic, be it remembered that "pure" mathematicians have frequently spoken of their activity in these terms. Moreover, in his use of such terms as "rhythm," "order," "design," "symmetry," " harmony," the mathematician or theoretical chemist or physicist frequently suggests an affinity between his activity and that of the artist. And this is surely related to what Kekul6 meant when he said "Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth," or more recently what Sir Cyril Hinshelwood had in mind when he spoke of chemistry as "that most excellent child of intellect and art." And, indeed, M. Jean Cocteau, the distinguished French poet, speaking as a humanist has suggested4 that, if properly apprehended, the latest discoveries of science tend t o promote an ever closer affinity between the poetic sensibility and the world revealed by scientific analysis. I n each case the ultimate achievement is an ordered, and therefore "satisfying," vision or structure, whether it be reached through the logical processes of induction, the shaping of empirical facts in a pattern, or the organizing of the emotions and sensibility in artistic terms. But the main problem is and alvays has been what to do with the knowledgeany knowledge-that man has possessed. What distinguishes the past and the present is that since, before the modern era, there was far less scientific knowledge available, no sharp distinction between it and other modes of knowledge was deemed necessary; and without the development of special techniques of investigation consequent upon the accumulation of empirical facts,
-
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-or a t least were not investigated in ways thought of consciously as distinct. As knowledge increased, new methods developed which helped to accumulate more knowledge; and the results of these new techniques are, of course, the natural sciences. "Times
Lzterary Supplement, Fehrua~y15, 1957.
' Le Journal d'un Incanu, 1953.
But the problem of what to do with this knowledge, say atomic power, or medical discoveries, remains not different in kind from the problem faced by the discoverers of Jire or bronze. It is, moreover, a problem shared by humanist and scientist alike. What is, perhaps, the peculiar modern problem is the amount and the complexity of knowledge now directly affecting human life. Within the past twenty years, the average life-expectancy in North America has increased by about 10 years, equal to the increase in the two thousand years before 1800. The shrinking of the world through advances in communication facilities is a commonplace, but nevertheless startling and momentous. Consider, too, the advance in sound engineering between the gramophone record of 1920 with its scratchy reproduction, and the long-playing high-fidelity equipment now available to any ingenious schoolboy. I n nearly every branch of knowledge applicable to the material existence of man, the same dramatic change is observable. If we plot a graph of time versus any of these variables-speeds attainable, diseases controlled or eliminated, and so on-we find that the graph rises slowly for a very long period, and then takes a sharp turn upwards in a period-our period-of drastic change. There seems to be no reason to doubt that the future will continue to witness a development and application of knowledge with similar unprecedented speed. In a recent book: Sir George Thompson, a Nobel Laureate, has dipped into the probable shape of things to come on a purposefully conservative assumption that no new basic scientific principles will be discovered during his limited forecast period. Fusion energy will be cheap and inexhaustible. Solar energy will be harnessed for special uses, providing another cheap and abundant source of power. Space flights will have left the fiction magazines for the scientist's planning room. I n medicine, the chief problem will be not how to attain old age, but how to make old age pleasant, pain-free, and desirable. These and other quietly stated predictions need no elaborating to bring out their portentous significance. The modern predicament is: how to master the infinitely varied knowledge of the modern world, without accepting the fragmentation of divided knowledge which will preclude the fostering of the kind of person capable of accepting the challenge of knowledge and power. This is important. The shape of the future is largely a matter of deliberate human choice. I t is influenced as never before both by what we do, and by what we value. More specifically, it will certainly be influenced by the number of balanced, well-informed, cultured people we possess, and this will be relatedthough perhaps not directly so-to what we spend on education, whether about ll/&& of the national income, as in the United States, or the 7-9y0, reported from the Soviet Union. The development of atomic power is only the most spectacular example of what is already a t hand in nearly every field of rapid development. Looking a t its first practical application to human affairs, it is not only the physicist who asks, with T. S. Eliot, After such knowledge, what forgiveness? TEOM~ON, SIR GEORGE, "The Foreseeable Future," Cambridge University Press, 1955. 396
Yet the problem posed here is not different in kind, only in the possibility of its apocalyptic drama, from that posed in other fields, chemistry, medical science, psychiatry, and for that matter from the problems raised by the previously mentioned use of bronze or fire. The optimistic vision often suggested of the future is not quite comforting, of course, and the varied implications of some advances in knowledge may be illustrated by just one example. It is reported that by projecting, in a New Jersey cinema, the picture of an ice cream cone on the screen for periods of less than '/&h of a second (that is, for less than is necessary to actually see, consciously, the image), the sale of ice cream was increased sixfold. The implications of this experiment are quite large, and its comedy is not unmixed with an uneasy shiver a t the sinister overtones, exploited in the 1930's by Aldous Huxley, and in our own day by George Oswell. All these discoveries will impinge more and more on our daily lives, and they raise problems as to their proper use which are beyond the power of any of the specialists responsible for them to solve. The point is not that science is "dangerous," which of course it is (hut equally so is education, for example), but rather that the problems raised require a total, integrated approach; that they are of importance to everyone, and certainly to all who claim an interest in the "intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual life." If we divide knowledge, and leave the scientist to scientific problems and the humanist to non-scientific problems, the humanities, like the sciences, become just another specialist field, suffering from the dangers inherent in the fragmentation of knowledge. Moreover, the humanities at least will continue to shrink and lose in an age such as this of rapid ficientific advance. Surely it is the special responsibility of the humanist to stress the relationship, indeed, the unity of all knowledge. I t is also the responsibility of the scientists. TOWARD A NEW SYNTHESIS
What is needed is the firm and reiterated recognition that the dividing line is not between one specialist (the scientist) and another specialist (the humanist), but rather between, on the one hand, the scholar who recognizes the unity of knowledge and its implications, and on the other hand the non-scholar, or even the mere specialist, scientist or humanist. For the traditional division is unrealistic and the analogy to a tree described a t the beginning of this paper is, therefore, misleading if it suggests only the dividing branches of knowledge, and methods of "knowing." But in fact it does no such thing. Granting the humanities and the sciences the autonomy necessary for their effective practical operation, the analogy also recognizes the unity of knowledge, the fruit of "the tree which remains now, as it was in the beginning, a tree to be desired to make one wise."8 Too much of this unity has been sacrificed in the interest of specialization. Although in a short essay it is impossible to outline a program to correct this, the following suggestions are offered, if not as a partial remedy, at least as a starting point for discussion. (1) A fresh examination of the implicit assumptions HOUSMAN, A. E., "Introduotory Lecture," 1892.
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and aims of the humanist, along the lines attempted in this paper, to bring them more into line with the tradition of the humanist as representative of the creative human spirit, whatever the field of its actual manifestation. (2) Let attempts be made to give special science courses, not as a preparation for additional science courses, as is frequently the present practice with the captive arts student, but rather to show science as an evolution and not merely a collection of knowledge. For science has always developed by question, challenge, and argument, and should therefore he presented as a long rational debate. In this way one can show the real nature of the scientific method as fact leads to experiment, experiment to generalization, and thus to further facts and additional experiments. (3) Let mathematics he taught more as a living language, instead of as a dead language-all formal manipulation and grammar. For mathematics is a living language and by analogy it is learned by speaking it-that is, by translating constantly from the everyday into mathematics and back into the everyday speech. (4) Smaller residential colleges in universities will certainly facilitate the liaison between different disci-
VOLUME 34, NO. 12, DECEMBER, 1957
plines which is so fruitful in the meeting of minds in everyday living. But perhaps it is too easy to blame the absence of these colleges for the separatist spirit so frequently found in the universities. What matters is that there should he the will to make such an exchange between specialists. (5) This brings us to the responsibility of the universities, which, as much as anything, are to blame for the overspecialization and fragmentation of knowledge. Let the universities show less complacency with regard to the problem. If, for example, those who teach in any field at a university are themselves men who are aware of the interconnection between the different fields of study, a forward step will have been taken. Certainly a man worthy of being a senior university teacher must be an authority in any one branch of learning. But just as a man who lacks this scholastic achievement should not be considered for a senior teaching post even if he is outstanding as an administrator or politician, so perhaps should we exclude from such senior posts a person who fails to relate his own subject to other branches of knowledge. Only so will universities flourish not only in a diversity, but also, in the full sense, in a universality of studies.
