The Genesis of the Concept of Scientific Progress and Scientific Cooperation

Abstract

Science appears, fully developed, only in Western civilization and the modern era. It is best understood if it is compared with other creations of the human mind playing analogous roles in other cultures: with the magic of the primitives, the theology of certain oriental cultures and that of the Arabic and Christian Middle Ages, the combination of metaphysics and rhetoric characteristic of education in classical antiquity, and the humanism of the Renaissance and classical China. Science shows certain differences from and certain conformities with each of them. It deals with worldly subject matters; so do magic, humanism, and classical philosophy. In contrast to magic, theology, and humanism it is not bound to authority; only classical philosophy was to a similar extent founded on individual thinking. In contrast to magic, science proceeds rationally — like the rest of its kin. But the rationality of science essentially differs from the rational methods of the classical philosophers and, particularly, the scholastics and humanists. Only science rationally investigates recurrent associations of phenomena, called “laws”, and has developed quantitative methods. And only science uses experimentation and systematically checks its findings with experience. All of these characteristics of science have been discussed in other places. Here the genesis of another trait, not less characteristic of science, is to be analyzed.