THE REAL WORLD 357 



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prehension, to a vision of reality. . . . the kind of order which the 

 discoverer claims to see in nature goes far beyond his understand- 

 ing; so that his triumph lies precisely in his foreknowledge of a host 

 of yet hidden implications which his discovery will reveal in later 

 davs to other eves. 



The pretensions of metaphysics are not curbed but encouraged 

 when scientists abandon their claim "to establish contact with real- 

 ity." The militant Victorian champions of science argued that it gives 

 us Truth, while metaphysics supplies only confusion. The positivists 

 concurred in the disparagement of metaphysics, and sought to con- 

 solidate the attack by showing that even science can make no claim 

 to know Truth. But the net eflfect of this analysis is to blur, not to 

 sharpen, the distinction. Science and metaphysics are now differenti- 

 able only in that statements of science are useful, while those of 

 metaphysics are "meaningless." That distinction is all too readily 

 ignored. Indeed, if neither science nor metaphysics can give us 

 Truth, why not prefer metaphysics to science? If "meaningless," met- 

 aphysics has at least "value" whereas science has only vulgar utility. 

 To be sure, positivism does make strange bedfellows. How ironic 

 that beneath its quilt we find, together with the vigorous naturalism 

 of a Mach, the theologic apologism of a Duhem— who finds in posi- 

 tivism the instrumentality that makes metaphysics master of science. 



It seems to me that contemporary philosophy of science has not 

 much improved matters. Consider, for example, the following state- 

 ment by Quine: 



As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of sci- 

 ence as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light 

 of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into 

 the situation as convenient intermediaries— not by definition in terms 

 of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemo- 

 logically, to the gods of Homer. For-my part I do, qua lay physicist, 

 believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it 

 a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological 

 footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and 

 not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cul- 

 tural posits. 



If as a logician Quine can argue that Homer's gods and physical ob- 

 jects are fundamentally alike "in point of epistemological footing," I 

 as a chemist might with equal justice maintain that a $1 and a $1000 



