PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 31 



scientist to justify his belief in the uniformity of nature, 

 or in the independence of the world which he is studying, 

 or in the basic rationality of nature. These propositions are 

 accepted uncritically by the scientist, and presumed to be 

 true until evidence to the contrary is revealed. 



These are facts about science, and can, I think, hardly 

 be called into question. But it is quite another matter to 

 ask whether the neglect of these problems by the scientist 

 produces any unfortunate consequences. Are these prob- 

 lems, after all, important? Granting that the scientist qua 

 scientist is justified in neglecting them, does it follow that 

 they may be disregarded by all investigators, or are they 

 of sufficient importance to warrant turning them over to 

 the philosopher or some other specialist for study ? 



It is the presumption of the philosophy of science that 

 problems of this type are important and should be, if not 

 solved, at least clarified. Their importance resides in the 

 fact that their neglect leads to difficulties. More particu- 

 larly, the extreme specialization of any scientist almost 

 inevitably results in a warped outlook not only on the world 

 as a whole but even on his own field. The belief soon arises 

 that the aspect of nature which he is studying is the only 

 aspect, and that all other aspects are either reducible to it 

 or such as can be studied by methods applicable to it. This 

 results in all sorts of erroneous conceptions, on the one 

 hand, of contradictions and antagonisms between the special 

 fields, and, on the other, of unjustifiable continuities holding 

 between them. For example, it may be held that science 

 and religion are in irreconcilable opposition, and doomed 

 to wage war on one another until one or the other is ex- 

 terminated; or it may be maintained that religion is con- 

 tinuous with science and therefore reducible to it in the 

 sense that religion is merely the feeling of awe and wonder 

 in the presence of the marvelous organization of nature — 

 a feeling which the scientist experiences in its most acute 

 form, and which compels him, willy-nilly, to be religious. 

 Specialization, furthermore, often blinds the investigator 



