Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Social Science and the Problem of Value 3
chemistry as well. There emerged, in other words, the ideal of an
integrated and closed system of science encompassing all of
physical existence. This actual achievement in the natural sciences
of an all-encompassing integrative theory had its unmistakable
effects in other areas of knowledge as well. The dream was, born
that some day-and in the not too distant future,--the same
methods and procedures so successfully applied in the natural
sciences would, via the biological and behavioral "sciences,"
encompass the whole of reality and would make everything-man
included-amenable to scientific interpretation and understanding.
From the point of view of the integration of all knowledge
this was unquestionably an ideal worth striving for.
This ideal of an integrated science, however, was keyed to two
crucial assumptions. One of these assumptions, formulated by
Galileo and actually employed in the natural sciences, was that
only quantities or facts reducible to quantities could be admitted
as real in science. The other-perhaps only a corollary of.the
first-was that only material objects and their interactions could
be regarded as legitimate objects of science. The ideal of an integrated
universal science would therefore inevitably entail a
naturalistic reductionism and the elimination of all value concepts
from the realm of science. Values, however, are part and parcel
of human existence-of an existence, that is, which is essentially
purposive activity and a matter of manifold valuations. In view
of the value-permeated character of human existence, a special
problem arises for all who advocate a total unity and integration
of science. It is this: Can man and his deliberate and purposive
actions be subordinated to a value-free conception of reality,
and can the human world be integrated with physical nature into
an all-comprehensive scientific view of the world? To put it in
still other terms: Can the reality of man, permeated with values
as it is, be fully understood in terms of value-free concepts and
theories? The problem would not arise, however, were it not for
a number of influential persons in the field of the social sciences
who ardently believe that it can be done and who work toward
the realization of this goal. Still, the' problem of value looms