Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

252 Scientism and J1alues
ances. This unification requires and justifies identifying science
with techniques of manipulation, letting the techniques determine
the valid limits of social research, working for an integration of
the outlook and resources of social scientists, and penalizing those
who resist convergence.
2. A n attempt to spread information about the potency of the
models of social science. Notational systems, it may be made reasonably
clear, are efficient implements for action, effective weapons
for the maintenance or destruction of power, likely to become
ever sharper in application.
3. A gradual enlargement of the area considered suitable for
scientific operations so that ever more tracts of life may be ordered
objectively. The depreciation of two major ideals would follow
from this activity: (1) the ideal that agreement should be reached,
however temporarily, by a process of political negotiation; (2) the
ideal that conflicts should be tentatively settled by means of
human-that is, value-ascribing-discourse, by dialectical social
philosophy.
As it becomes possible to place goals into a frame within which
they may be objectively perceived, within which those value
conflicts left inconclusive by parliamentary politics may be settled
with finality, thanks to a neutral "administration of things," the
ends of life and action are removed from the traditional process
of political compromise and dialectical discussion. Such a process
must appear increasingly specious, being predicated on the possibility
of human rationality, on the conviction that language may
be informative and can make genuine knowledge available. When
it is held, to the contrary, that language functions merely to secure
or prevent action, to maintain or destroy an equilibrium, to create
or undermine consensus, parliamentarianism can be only atmospherically
useful.
The assumption that knowledge is gained only by language
which has operational meaning and that all other language rationalizes
th.e drive for power or serves to sublimate aggressions and
extend pleasures leads not only to the devaluation of political settlements,
but also to the rejection of artists, mystics, and philosophers
as collaborators in the perennial search for final truth.