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253
The Crisis in Psychology
Finally, let us proceed to a positive definition of the general science. It might
seem that if the difference between general and special science as to their subject
matter, method, and goal of study is merely relative and not absolute, quantitative
and
not fundamental, we lose any ground to distinguish them theoretically. It
might
seem that there is no general science at all as distinct from the special sciences.
But this is not true, of course. Quantity turns into quality here and provides the
basis for a qualitatively distinct science. However the latter is not torn away from
the given family of sciences and transferred to logic. The fact that at the root of
every scientific concept lies a fact does not mean that the fact is represented in
every scientific concept in the same way. In the mathematical concept of infinity
reality is represented in a way completely different from the way it is represented
in the concept of the conditional reflex. In the concepts of a higher order with
which the general science is dealing, reality is represented in another way than in
the concepts of an empirical science.
And
the way, character, and form in which
reality is represented in the various sciences in every case determines the structure
of every discipline.
But this difference in the way of representing reality, i.e., in the structure of
the concepts, should not be understood as something absolute either. There are
many transitional levels between an empirical science and a general one. Bin-
swanger [1922, p. 4] says that not a single science that deserves the name can “leave
it at the simple accumulation of concepts, it strives rather to systematically develop
concepts into rules, rules into laws, laws into theories.” The elaboration of concepts,
methods,
and
theories takes place within the science itself during the whole course
of scientific knowledge acquisition, i.e., the transition from one pole to the other,
from fact to concept, is accomplished without pausing for a single minute. And
thereby the logical abyss, the impassable line between general and special science
is erased, whereas the factual independence and necessity of a general science is
created. Just like the special science itself internally takes care of all the work of
funneling facts via rules into laws and laws via theories into hypotheses, general
science carries out the same work, by the same method, with the same goals, but
for a number of the various special sciences.
This is entirely similar to Spinoza’s argumentation about method. A theory of
method is, of course, the production of means of production, to take a comparison
from the field of industry. But in industry the production of means of production
is no special, primordial production, but forms part of the general process of pro-
duction and itself depends upon the same methods and tools of production as all
other production.
Spinoza
[1677/1955,
pp. 11-12] argues that
we
must first
take care not to commit ourselves to a search going back to infinity,
that is, in order to discover the best method for finding the truth, there is no need of
another method to discover such method; nor of a third method for discovering the
second, and so on to infinity. By such proceedings, we should never arrive at the
knowledge of the truth, or,
indeed,
at any knowledge at all. The matter stands on the
same footing as the making of material tools, which might be
argued
about in a similar
way. For, in order to work iron, a hammer is needed, and the hammer cannot be
forthcoming
unless
it has been made; but in order to make it, there was need of another
hammer
and
other tools, and so on to infinity. We might thus vainly endeavor to prove
that men have no power of working iron. But as men at first made
use
of the
instruments supplied by nature to accomplish very easy pieces of workmanship,
laboriously and imperfectly, and then, when these were finished, wrought other things
more difficult with
less
labor and greater perfection; and so gradually mounted from
the simplest operations to the making of tools, and from the making of tools to the
making of more complex tools, and fresh feats of workmanship, till they arrived at
making, with small expenditure of labor, the vast number of complicated mechanisms
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