The Science of Creation

Abstract

Should not philosophy begin to be its age? Prior to 1900, when science was still classical science established upon supposedly absolute principles, philosophy could be metaphysics reconstructing science upon new absolute foundations, or criticism which challenged every claim to absolute knowledge. But since 1900 science has become wholly empirical, and invites neither reconstruction nor criticism. The philosophical pursuit of value-knowledge must evidently strike a new direction; and the only direction open to it is one which will show empirical science itself to be value-knowledge. The question is how this may be done. Three epochal discoveries dethroned classical thought, which had established knowledge upon absolute a priori principles. The first was the disestablishment of absolute geometry, which left only statistical description, implemented by arithmetic. The second was the so-called uncertainty principle, the discovery that physical change is not subject to exact and exhaustive theoretical analysis. The third was G*del's proof of the incompletability of number-theory, which entails the incompletability of all theory. These three discoveries preclude any restoration of classical science and philosophy. Six men-Michelson and Morley, Einstein, Planck and Heisenberg, and GiSdel-brought the long classical age to a close. Shall we pretend that these things have not happened? Shall we still be occupied with a priori principles, calling these analytic or tautologous instead of synthetic on the ground that they support a theory descriptive only of language? Or shall we be our age, which is 1950 and not 1900 A.D., and acknowledge that contemporary science permits of no appeal to self-evident principles? If we claim to be empirical;we should be honest, and not hide from empirical truth behind exploded logical tradition.