Scientism and Values.pdf - Ludwig von Mises Institute

24 Scientism and Values
The status of value is far less certain and far more obscure than
the status of objects. The status of objects, if we accept modern
science, is so uncertain and obscure as to render worse than worthless
any term such as "objectivity" that depends on this status for
its meaning. If knowledge of objects is knowledge only of extension,
motion, figure and number, as was assumed when the foundations
of modern science w'ere laid; if sense impressions are all
contributed by the subject; and if, as George Berkeley 1 pointed
out, objects can be seen only because they are colored, it follows,
if anything follows, that the status of both minds and objects in
science is such as to raise the question whether rational discourse
is possible. Berkeley failed to take into account the consideration
that if objects existed only in minds, as he held, one could close
and open his eyes without having any effect whatever on the visibility
of objects. And if there is any such process as proof that
involves the world-as distinguished from proof that has to do
only with words that have no necessary connection with the world
-then the fact that when one closes one's eyes objects disappear
is proof that objects exist outside of human minds.
It would be fatuous to assume that because Berkeley did not
take these considerations into account, he was unaware of them.
His attention was focused on the more important consideration
that modern science was undermining the foundations of rational
discourse. His object was to keep modern science and at the same
time restore the foundations.
Berkeley insisted on the one implication, assuming the validity
of the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, that
was necessary to save man from a situation in which it 'Y0uld appear
to be warranted to say that something both is and is not at
the same time and in the same way, and that two persons may see
something truly and yet see it as something totally different. Berkeley's
insistence that modern science necessarily implies a mind
that contains everything, that maintains everything in existence,
that sees everything truly as it is, is, among other things, a way
of insisting that rationality is available for the government of the
universe and that the effort of man to understand and participate