Conclusion:
Studying general science will help the progress of specialized sciences.
“The special study of the general traits of the sciences … will … contribute to the particular progress of different positive sciences.” (25)
Premises
1. Studying a specialized science alone gives people tunnel vision.
-Sciences become specialized so that the problems of different sciences can be separated, and thus solved more easily (26).
-When a problem needs the combined perspective of different sciences however, an addiction to one’s specialization hinders the solution (26).
2. Important questions in a particular science often need to be solved through a combined perspective with another science. (26)
-Descartes conceived of Analytic Geometry, which combined the principles of geometry and algebra. This simple unification of two subjects (that were once studied separately) led to great subsequent discoveries in geometry.
-To figure out whether Nitrogen should be regarded as an element or a compound, one would need the understanding of both physiology and chemistry, especially since (at Comte’s time) people from these two fields had distinct educated answers for the same question.
-All compounds are composed of fixed amounts of elements, except for organic compounds. A truly fundamental theory would take this exception into consideration, and it would be a theory that would have to be developed through the expertise of both physiology and chemistry.
-Sciences are specialized artificially. Naturally, many sciences are closely related (25).
3. We should study the general traits of science to get a perspective of different sciences.
-Studying many particular sciences in great detail is impractical and impossible (24).
-The particular sciences, in order to be studied practically, must be reduced to their essence- that is their principal methods and most important results. This is general science (25).
4. The study of general science will advance all the specialized sciences (25).
-Many particular sciences are influenced by theological and metaphysical ideas (29).
-The theological traits involve the interaction of supernatural agents. With the metaphysical traits, the supernatural agents are replaced by abstractions. They both seek, and often assume, absolute truths (2).
-The theological and the metaphysical are arbitrary, and will not be agreed on by everybody (30).
-Defining general traits of the sciences that can be agreed on by everybody will help eliminate the poisonous theological and metaphysical traits in many particular sciences (30).
-Without the theological and the metaphysical, what we will have left is the positive. Positive philosophy does not look for absolute truths (i.e. supernatural figures and abstractions), it does not look for the origin and final ends of phenomena. Instead, it looks for the invariable relations of successions and likeness (2).
-Metaphysical and theological philosophy has made very few advances (because they're so arbitrary), whereas positive philosophy has made constant advances (29).
I'm wondering if the study of general science is merely a means to anchor the other sciences so that they have something to fall back on. In the pursuit of positive philosophy, I don't see a waning in the pursuit of detail in the individual sciences; expanding upon these details for one science may even eventually shed light on a fundamental principle that can actually bind the other sciences as well. It's interesting then that despite the abundance of details, we need only not get lost in them, and pull ourselves back, to start to respect homogeneity between sciences (32).
ReplyDeleteIn premise #3, I can see why studying in great detail becomes impractical however, shying away from something that appears immense and 'impossible' is also hindering knowledge. The system has to be revamped to allow an easier way of studying in detail without losing the bigger picture.
ReplyDeleteComte states that the theological and metaphysical states have "poisonous" traits; he somewhat assumes that the positive philosophy will not have these traits. Each discipline has its own bent. It takes time to know whether nitrogen is a compound or an element. Now we know it is an element. How can Comte assume beforehand that his philosophy is “timeless”? It is like what my English professor said, “Shakespeare is timeless.” If Comte is not trying to find the absolute truth, what is he trying to find? If the absolute truth can be changed overtime, it implies that it can be falsified. In this sense, the positive philosophy, in terms of degree, is similar to the theological and the metaphysical.
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