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242 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

toward what they believed to be biological and organic

interpretation of social phenomena. They indulged

freely in metaphorical language and quite seriously

discussed such problems as what in the social "body"

should be classed as "intercellular substance." When the

absurdity of this biologism and organicism became ob-

vious,

the sociologists completely abandoned the am-

bitious pretensions of Comte. There was no longer any

question of discovering a posteriori laws of social

change. Various historical, ethnographical, and psycho-

logical studies were put out under the label sociology.

Many of these publications were dilettantish and con-

fused; some are acceptable contributions to various

fields of historical research. Without any value, on the

other hand, were the writings of those who termed

sociology their arbitrary metaphysical effusions about

the recondite meaning and end of the historical process

which had been previously styled philosophy of his-

tory. Thus, fimile Durkheim and his school revived

under the appellation group mind the old specter of

romanticism and the German school of historical juris-

prudence, the Volksgeist.

In spite of this manifest failure of the positivist pro-

gram, a neopositivist movement has arisen. It stub-

bornly repeats all the fallacies of Comte. The same

motive inspires these writers that inspired Comte. They

are driven by an idiosyncratic abhorrence of the market

economy and its political corollary: representative gov-

ernment, freedom of thought, speech, and the press.

They long for totalitarianism, dictatorship, and the

ruthless oppression of all dissenters, taking, of course,

THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 243

for granted that they themselves or their intimate

friends will be vested with the supreme office and the

power to silence all opponents. Comte without shame

advocated suppression of all doctrines he disliked. The

most obtrusive champion of the neopositivist program

concerning the sciences of human action was Otto Neu-

rath who, in 1919, was one of the outstanding leaders of

the short-lived Soviet regime of Munich and later co-

operated briefly in Moscow with the bureaucracy of

the Bolsheviks.

Knowing they cannot advance any

tenable argument against the economists' critique of

their plans, these passionate communists try to discredit

economics wholesale on epistemological grounds.

The two main varieties of the neopositivistic assault

on economics are panphysicalism and behaviorism.

Both claim to substitute a purely causal treatment of

human action for the—as they declare unscientific—

teleological treatment.

Panphysicalism teaches that the procedures of phys-

ics are the only scientific method of all branches of

science. It denies that any essential differences exist

between the natural sciences and the sciences of human

action. This denial lies behind the panphysicalists' slo-

gan "unified science." Sense experience, which conveys

to man his information about physical events, provides

him also with all information about the behavior of his

fellow men. Study of the way his fellows react to var-

ious stimuli does not differ essentially from study of the

way other objects react. The language of physics is the

Otto Neurath, "Foundations of the Social Sciences," Interna-

tional Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 2, No. 1.

244 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

universal language of all branches of knowledge, with-

out exception. What cannot be rendered in the lan-

guage of physics is metaphysical nonsense. It is arro-

gant pretension in man to believe that his role in the

universe is different from that of other objects. In the

eyes of the scientist all things are equal. All talk about

consciousness, volition, and aiming at ends is empty.

Man is just one of the elements in the universe. The

applied science of social physics, social engineering,

can deal with man in the same way technology deals

with copper and hydrogen.

The panphysicalist might admit at least one essential

difference between man and the objects of physics. The

stones and the atoms reflect neither upon their own

nature, properties, and behavior nor upon those of man.

They do not engineer either themselves or man. Man is

at least different from them insofar as he is a physicist

and an engineer. It is difficult to conceive how one

could deal with the activities of an engineer without

realizing that he chooses between various possible lines

of conduct and is intent upon attaining definite ends.

Why does he build a bridge rather than a ferry? Why

does he build one bridge with a capacity of ten tons

and another with a capacity of twenty tons? Why is he

intent upon constructing bridges that do not collapse?

Or is it only an accident that most bridges do not col-

lapse? If one eliminates from the treatment of human

action the notion of conscious aiming at definite ends,

one must replace it by the—really metaphysical—idea

that some superhuman agency leads men, independ-

ently of their will, toward a predestined goal: that what

THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 245

put the bridge-builder into motion was the preordained

plan of Geist or the material productive forces which

mortal men are forced to execute.

To say that man reacts to stimuli and adjusts himself

to the conditions of his environment does not provide

a satisfactoiy answer. To the stimulus offered by the

English Channel some people have reacted by staying

at home; others have crossed it in rowboats, sailing

ships,

steamers, or, in modern times simply by swim-

ming. Some fly over it in planes; others design schemes

for tunneling under it. It is vain to ascribe the differ-

ences in reaction to differences in attendant circum-

stances such as the state of technological knowledge

and the supply of labor and capital goods. These other

conditions too are of human origin and can only be

explained by resorting to teleological methods.

The approach of behaviorism is in some respects dif-

ferent from that of panphysicalism, but it resembles the

latter in its hopeless attempt to deal with human action

without reference to consciousness and aiming at ends.

It bases its reasoning on the slogan "adjustment/' Like

any other being, man adjusts himself to the conditions

of his environment. But behaviorism fails to explain

why different people adjust themselves to the same

conditions in different ways. Why do some people flee

violent aggression while others resist it? Why did the

peoples of Western Europe adjust themselves to the

scarcity of all things on which human well-being de-

pends in a way entirely different from that of the

Orientals?

Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior ac-

246 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

cording to the methods developed by animal and infant

psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts,

automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told

us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals,

railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have pro-

duced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the au-

tomatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline

of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting

atoms. Behaviorism wants to observe human behavior

from without and to deal with it merely as reaction to

a definite situation. It punctiliously avoids any refer-

ence to meaning and purpose. However, a situation can-

not be described without analyzing the meaning which

the man concerned finds in it. If one avoids dealing

with this meaning, one neglects the essential factor that

decisively determines the mode of reaction. This re-

action is not automatic but depends entirely upon the

interpretation and value judgments of the individual,

who aims to bring about, if feasible, a situation which

he prefers to the state of affairs that would prevail if he

were not to interfere. Consider a behaviorist describing

the situation which an offer to sell brings about without

reference to the meaning each party attaches to it!

In fact, behaviorism would outlaw the study of hu-

man action and substitute physiology for it. The be-

haviorists never succeeded in making clear the differ-

ence between physiology and behaviorism. Watson

declared that physiology is "particularly interested in

the functioning of parts of the animal . . . , behavior-

ism,

on the other hand, while it is intensely interested

in all of the functioning of these parts, is intrinsically

THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 247

interested

what

the

whole animal will

do/'

How-

ever, such physiological phenomena

as the

resistance

the

body

infection

or the

growth

and

aging

of an

individual can certainly not be called behavior

parts.

the

other hand,

one wants

call such

gesture

the

movement

of an arm

(either

strike

or to ca-

ress )

behavior

the whole human animal, the idea can

only

that such

gesture cannot

imputed

to any

separate part

the being. But what else can this some-

thing to which

must be imputed be

not the meaning

and

the

intention

of the

actor

that unnamed thing

from which meaning and intention originate? Behavior-

ism asserts that

wants

predict human behavior.

But

it is

impossible

predict the reaction

of a

man

ac-

costed

another with

the

words

"you rat"

without

referring

to the

meaning that

the man

spoken

to at-

taches

to the

epithet.

Both varieties

positivism decline

recognize

the

fact that men aim purposefully

definite ends. As they

see it,

all

events must

interpreted

the relationship

of stimulus

and

response,

and

there

is no

room left

for

a search

for

final causes. Against this rigid dogmatism

necessary

stress

the

point that

the

rejection

finalism in dealing with events outside

the

sphere

human action

enjoined upon science only

by the in-

sufficiency

human reason.

The

natural sciences must

refrain from dealing with final causes because they

are

unable

discover

any

final causes,

not

because they

can prove that no final causes are operative. The cogni-

John

Watson, Behaviorism (New York,

W. W.

Norton, 1930),

11.

248 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

zance of the interconnectedness of all phenomena and

of the regularity in their concatenation and sequence,

and the fact that causality research works and has en-

larged human knowledge, do not peremptorily preclude

the assumption that final causes are operative in the

universe. The reason for the natural sciences* neglect

of final causes and their exclusive preoccupation with

causality research is that this method works. The con-

trivances designed according to the scientific theories

run the way the theories predicted and thus provide a

pragmatic verification for their correctness. On the

other hand the magic devices did not come up to expec-

tations and do not bear witness to the magic world

view.

It is obvious that it is also impossible to demonstrate

satisfactorily by ratiocination that the alter ego is a

being that aims purposively at ends. But the same

pragmatic proof that can be advanced in favor of the

exclusive use of causal research in the field of nature

can be advanced in favor of the exclusive use of teleo-

logical methods in the field of human action. It works,

while the idea of dealing with men as if they were

stones or mice does not work. It works not only in the

search for knowledge and theories but no less in daily

practice.

The positivist arrives at his point of view surrepti-

tiously. He denies to his fellow men the faculty of

choosing ends and the means to attain these ends, but

at the same time he claims for himself the ability to

choose consciously between various methods of scien-

tific procedure. He shifts his ground as soon as it comes

THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 249

to problems of engineering, whether technological or

"social." He designs plans and policies which cannot be

interpreted as merely being automatic reactions to stim-

uli.

He wants to deprive all his fellows of the right to

act in order to reserve this privilege for himself alone.

He is a virtual dictator.

As the behaviorist tells us, man can be thought of as

"an assembled organic machine ready to run."

He dis-

regards the fact that while machines run the way the

engineer and the operator make them run, men run

spontaneously here and there. "At birth human infants,

regardless of their heredity, are as equal as Fords."

Starting from this manifest falsehood, the behaviorist

proposes to operate the "human Ford" the way the

operator drives his car. He acts as if he owned human-

ity and were called upon to control and to shape it ac-

cording to his own designs. For he himself is above the

law, the godsent ruler of mankind.

Watson, p. 269.

Horace M. Kallen, "Behaviorism," Encyclopaedia of the Social

Sciences, 2, 498.

Karl Mannheim developed a comprehensive plan to pro-

duce the "best possible" human types by "deliberately" reorganizing

the various groups of social factors. "We," that is Karl Mannheim and

his friends, will determine what "the highest good of society and the

peace of mind of the individual" require. Then "we" will revamp

mankind. For our vocation is "the planned guidance of people's lives."

Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (London,

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1940), p. 222. The most remarkable thing

about such ideas is that in the thirties and forties they were styled

democratic, liberal, and progressive. Joseph Goebbels was more mod-

est than Mannheim in that he wanted only to revamp the German

people and not the whole of mankind. But in his approach to the

problem he did not differ essentially from Mannheim. In a letter of

April 12, 1933, to Wilhelm Furtwangler he referred to the "we" to

250 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF HISTORY

As long as positivism does not explain philosophies

and theories, and the plans and policies derived from

them, in terms of its stimulus-response scheme, it de-

feats

itself.

The Collectivist Dogma

Modern collectivist philosophy is a coarse offshoot

of the old doctrine of conceptual realism. It has severed

itself from the general philosophical antagonism be-

tween realism and nominalism and hardly pays any

attention to the continued conflict of the two schools.

It is a political doctrine and as such employs a ter-

minology that is seemingly different from that used in

the scholastic debates concerning universals as well

from that of contemporary neorealism. But the nucleus

of its teachings does not differ from that of the medieval

realists. It ascribes to the universals objective real exist-

ence, even an existence superior to that of individuals,

sometimes, even, flatly denying the autonomous exist-

ence of individuals, the only real existence.

What distinguishes collectivism from conceptual real-

ism as taught by philosophers is not the method of ap-

proach but the political tendencies implied. Collectiv-

ism transforms the epistemological doctrine into an

whom "the responsible task has been entrusted, to fashion out of the

raw stuff of the masses the firm and well-shaped structure of the

nation (denen die verantwortungsvolle Aufgabe anvertraut ist, aus

dem rohen Stoff der Masse das feste und gestalthafte Cebilde des

Volkes zu formen)." Berta Geissmar, Musik im Schatten der Politik

(Zurich, Atlantis Verlag, 1945), pp. 97-9. Unfortunately neither

Mannheim nor Goebbels told us who had entrusted them with the task

of reconstructing and re-creating men.

THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 251

ethical claim. It tells people what they ought to do. It

distinguishes between the true collective entity to

which people owe loyalty and spurious pseudo entities

about which they ought not to bother at all. There is no

uniform collectivist ideology, but many collectivist doc-

trines.

Each of them extols a different collectivist entity

and requests all decent people to submit to it. Each

sect worships its own idol and is intolerant of all rival

idols.

Each ordains total subjection of the individual,

each is totalitarian.

The particularist character of the various collectivist

doctrines could easily be ignored because they regu-

larly start with the opposition between society in gen-

eral and individuals. In this antithesis there appears

only one collective comprehending all individuals.

There cannot therefore arise any rivalry among a mul-

titude of collective entities. But in the further course

of the analysis a special collective is imperceptibly sub-

stituted for the comprehensive image of the unique

great society.

Let us first examine the concept of society in general.

Men cooperate with one another. The totality of

interhuman relations engendered by such cooperation

is called society. Society is not an entity in

itself.

It is

an aspect of human action. It does not exist or live out-

side of the conduct of people. It is an orientation of hu-

man action. Society neither thinks nor acts. Individuals

in thinking and acting constitute a complex of relations

and facts that are called social relations and facts.

The issue has been confused by an arithmetical meta-

phor. Is society, people asked, merely a sum of individ-