Scientific Certitude and Its Acquisition

book_5 Before you read

Glenn defines science as a body of truths known with certitude through demonstration — knowledge of things in and through their causes. He distinguishes science from opinion, from faith, and from mere erudition. He surveys the method of scientific inquiry: observation of fact, formation of hypothesis, verification by experiment or demonstration, and organisation of results into systematic knowledge. He then presents the traditional division of the sciences by their formal objects: the philosophy of nature (physical science in its ultimate dimension), mathematics, and metaphysics — with theology as a science above and beyond the natural order.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have learned the meaning of evidence. We have seen that objective evidence, which can be intrinsic, or ex trinsic, is the ultimate source of certitude, and the ultimate cri terion of truth. We have investigated the senses, the mind, and authority as fonts of evidence and consequently of certitude. We have tried to establish the value of these fonts. We have noticed some sources of mistaken or falsified evidence which are likely to deceive the unwary mind.

a) Science; b) Method.

a) Science

The Latin word sciential which we transliterate as science means “true and certain knoWledge based on intrinsic evidence.”

First and foremost, science is certain knowledge in the mind; and the reason this knowledge is certain is that the mind has a grasp of how and why the facts that it knows must be so. Further, this how and why are not furnished by human authority or by direct sense-experience. They are supplied, mediately or immediately, by the searching quest of reason. Science is “knowledge that is certain because evidenced by causes and reasons.”

We may be certain of a thing we know by direct sense- experience ; we may be certain of a thing about which a reliable person has informed us; but} in these cases, while we have certitude, we have not science. Only when we can give some reasoned account of what we know, and of how and why we know it must be so, have we science. Thus science is another name for scientific certitude or scientific knowledge. A schoolboy may know that a triangle has angles that add up to 180° because he reasonably accepts the word of his teacher or of the textbook that this is a fact. He has knowledge, and indeed certain knowledge, but not science or scientific knowledge. His certitude is the certitude of human faith and not the certitude of science. But when the schoolboy has worked out the theorem about the sum of angles; when he has understood the whole problem and every step of its solution, he knows the truth in a new way. For he not only knows the fact that the sum of the angles of a triangle is i8o°, but he also sees the reasons for the fact; he sees how it is so, and why it must be so. In a word, he now has scientific knowledge or scientific certitude of the fact.

The word science is also used objectively to indicate the recorded findings of persons who have achieved scientific certitude. Thus when the schoolboy tells us that he is “studying science” we know he means to tell us that he is studying books, or lessons designed by a teacher, in which certainly evidenced data are set forth for him to learn. In our day, this objective and general use of the term science ordinarily indicates experimental science; when the schoolboy says he is “studying science” we think at once of physics, or chemistry, or astronomy, or biology, or a hodge-podge of all these called general science. But this accidental employment of a term must not blind us to its fuller meaning. For science, in its full objective meaning, is the whole body of ascertained and reasoned truths which human reason has established as truths and has systematized and arranged, no matter what various fields of speculation or experiment such arrangement may entail. And each specific department of that universal body of reasoned and certain knowledge is a science. A science is, therefore, a body of related data set forth in an orderly manner which is marked by completeness and by the consistent manifestation of the causes and reasons which justify each step of its development. In this sense, biology is a science; criteriology is a science; philosophy is a science.

Sciences are of various types. Speculative or theoretical sciences enrich the mind with truth and certitude, but do not point on to anything that is to be done; practical sciences equip the mind with knowledge that points on to action; experimental

SCIENCE AND METHOD 225 sciences gather their data by laboratory methods; rational sciences are developed by the use of reasoned principles; theo logical science is developed according to revealed truth; physical sciences deal in some manner with the bodily world; mathemati cal sciences deal with pure quantity; metaphysical sciences deal with real but non-material being; logical science deals with the mental processes and their fruits or achievements; moral science deals with free and responsible human conduct.

Each science has a material object and a formal object. The material object of a science is the subject-matter of the science, the subject with which it deals or of which it treats. The formal object is the precise aim, point of view, or aspect with which the science treats its material object. The formal object of a science specifies it, gives it its character as a distinct science among other sciences in the same general field, that is, among sciences that have the same material object.

b) Method

Method is an English form of the Greek mef-hodos which means “a way after.” Method is a way after truth, a reasonable and orderly procedure in the attaining of truth and certitude. It is a seemly mode of acquiring truth.

The chief types of method are the deductive method and the inductive method. The deductive method develops truth by working from general principles to particular instances and applications of these principles. The inductive method works from particular data to build up general principles. These methods are not in opposition. They are supplementary. Some sciences require, by their nature, more of the deductive than the inductive method; other sciences are, by their nature, largely restricted to the use of the inductive method. The fashion of regarding the inductive method as the sole instrument of science is merely silly and impertinent unless the term science be unreasonably limited in meaning (as it usually is today) to indicate only experimental or laboratory science. But, with reference to learning in general.

the two methods are like the two feet of a pedestrian; he gets on safely, gracefully, and comfortably by the use of both.

Different types of sciences have different general requirements, but it is possible tp formulate certain inclusive rides governing all methods. Such rules are the following:

Proceed from the easy to the difficult; from the simple to the complex; from what is well known to what is less known.

2. The procedure must be continuous, not broken by gaps or jumps; the connection of points and their logical order must be observed and made manifest j. The available grade of certitude (moral, physical, absolute) must be sought, and not a higher grade; failure here renders the method inept

4. The procedure must be clear and not obscured by prolixity, involved language, complicated style; the point of enquiry must be precise and perfectly recognized, and throughout the development of the investigation it must be held steadily in view.

Summary of the Article

In this brief Article we have studied the meaning of science as scientific knowledge, and as the body of knowable truths available to man. We have listed various types of sciences. We have indicated the meaning of the object of a science. We have discussed method or the orderly procedure of mind in the quest of scientific knowledge. We have mentioned deductive method and inductive method as supplementary types, and we have set down some general laws of method.