Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute
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Social Science As Autonomous Activity 237<br />
examined for their intrinsic merits. They are kept from becoming<br />
the object of discourse. The aim is not the disclosure <strong>and</strong> objectification<br />
of equivocal meanings <strong>and</strong> values, but, on the contrary,<br />
their systematic elimination. The remaining theoretical structure,<br />
deliberately removed from experience, is to constitute a positive<br />
natural science o£society.<br />
The obstacles to its formulation, it is conceded, seem insuperable<br />
because they have been so firmly built into the mind of Western<br />
man that even as he attempts to reflect upon them they st<strong>and</strong><br />
in his way. The very character of thought <strong>and</strong> language allows for<br />
misleading distinctions between value-attributing subject <strong>and</strong> passive<br />
object, between substance <strong>and</strong> function. These distinctions are<br />
believed to keep thought from becoming objective, permitting it<br />
to correspond, not to the structure of the forces at large in the<br />
world, but to the ever-varying desires of individuals. 2 The need,<br />
therefore, is to escape the prison of a language incorporating<br />
values, to cease using quality-ascribing adjectives which intriguingly<br />
hint at the existence of essentials, <strong>and</strong> to center at last on<br />
dynamic processes. It becomes important to extinguish symbols<br />
useful only when the channels of communication are not clear,<br />
when redundancies are required to catch our attention or overcome<br />
noises on the line. The residual system will embrace all<br />
meaningful facts of social life, living up to Galileo's great vision:<br />
Philosophy is written in that vast book which st<strong>and</strong>s ever open before<br />
our eyes, 1 mean the universe; but it cannot be read until we have<br />
learnt the language <strong>and</strong> become familiar with the character in which<br />
it is written. It is written in.mathematical language, <strong>and</strong> the letters<br />
are triangles, circles <strong>and</strong>. other geometrical figures, without which<br />
means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.3<br />
This geometric design, once apprehended in its fullness, cannot<br />
be defiled by historical change. As an absolute, it will be radically<br />
unhistorical, compressing past <strong>and</strong> future into a timeless frame.<br />
Thus, in psychology, to introduce but one example, the informed<br />
will repress all dramatic language <strong>and</strong> shift to a functional inter-
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