Umdenken in der Naturwissenschaft

Abstract

Modern natural science does not deal with nature as a whole but is still based on the Cartesian dualism of mind and body ('res cogitans' and 'res extensa'), as well as on Francis Bacon's motto “dissecare naturam”. Moreover, Bacon restricted science to the investigation of material and efficient causes and refused to admit the use of final causes. The metaphysics of Baconian science is based on the confidence that nothing can be known about nature except what can be proved by experiments, that is by interventions which require artificially produced, deliberately controlled, and reproducible conditions. However, empirical science does not intrinsically require the invasive experimental interrogation of nature, called for by Francis Bacon. The Baconian mode of explication seems to be so effective since it sets its own well established normative standards of judgement we often tacitly adopt for our research, so that we only see what we look for. – There is a growing recognition of the inadequacy of Cartesian and Baconian conceptions as the only basis for our understanding of nature. The Baconian method is specialized in experimental manipulations and in predictions, but the aim of science is not to manipulate nature but to create insight. Moreover, modern science, specifically quantum mechanics, has rendered obsolete the Cartesian duality, reductionism, and atomism. Furthermore, the Baconian rejection of finality does not follow from the first principles of quantum theory. There are good reasons for the view that methods of contemporary science are unnecessarily limited by many tacit preconceptions and blind fascinations. In order to secure the continuation of our culture it is important to make our tacit preconceptions and driving motivation explicit. A full-grown science cannot any longer be one-eyed. We have to admit that nature contains both rational and irrational elements, that it includes physis and psyche as complementary aspects of the same reality. We are at the bare beginning to understand reality, but we may have reached a turning point, a way of thinking is developing which is very different from that which has been dominant in the past decades, and which recognizes the repression of the irrational as incongruous.