Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

240 Scientism and Values
dore M. Newcomh has sympathetically reviewed what this is likely
to imply, for example, for psychology:
There is no harder lesson for the psychologist to learn, probably, than
that of viewing persons as functionaries in a group structure rather
than as psychological organisms-i.e., as parts rather than as wholes,
and as parts which, within limits, are interchangeable.
Once this lesson is learned, however, the facts of social structure
become available; a social system is seen as made up of differentiated
parts, the orderly relationships among which, rather than the personal
identity of which, become the major object of concern. 6
Far more broadly, Hannah Arendt, noting the implications of
functionalizing the purposive, dramatic content of intellectual categories,
has shown how it has become possible, for example, to
identify Hitler and Jesus because functionally their roles were
indistinguishable. 7 Such linking of variables becomes essential to
a science intent on dealing with all components of a social field as
role-playing functionaries so as to make society explicable. Full
explication requires treating society as a system whose parts, in
theory if not in momentarily stubborn fact, "make sense," all being
duly related, complementing and balancing one another.
On the basis of this assumption of the natural harmony of structural
components" the quest for knowledge may proceed. By the
traditional method of (1) postulating a hypothesis which might
economically relate variables, (2) following through by making deductions,
(3) checking whether the hypothesis corresponds to sense
experience, and (4) accepting, amending, or rejecting the hypothesis-by
this method reality may be known. 8 Hypotheses, assuredly,
may have to be reversed by "factual reality." Yet, it should be
noted, only ,after agreement is reached as to what is meant by
"facts" do facts actually have the final say: facts, it is held, must be
so constituted as to leave manifest traces before they can be given a
voice. The social scientist's hypotheses----devised to lead him to uniformities
of behavior-will permit rational, scientific control only
of such facts as take their place in his conceptual order of uniformly
related, coexisting parts. His very approach is designed to