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254 Chapter 15
which they now possess. So, in like manner, the intellect, by its native strength, makes
for itself intellectual instruments, whereby it acquires strength for performing other
intellectual operations, and from these operations gets again fresh instruments, or the
power of pushing its investigations further, and thus gradually proceeds till it reaches
the summit of wisdom.
The methodological current to which Binswanger belongs also admits that the
production of tools and that of creative work are, in principle, not two separate
processes in science, but two sides of the same process which go hand in hand.
Following Rickert, he defines each science as the processing
[Bearbeitung]
of ma-
terial, and therefore for him two problems arise in every science—one with respect
to the material and the other concerning its processing. One cannot, however, draw
such a sharp dividing line, since the concept of the object of the empirical science
already contains a good deal of processing. And he (Binswanger, 1922, pp. 7-8)
distinguishes between the raw material, the real object
[wirklichen Gegenstand]
and
the scientific object
[wissenschafthichen Gegenstand].
The latter is created by science
from the real object via concepts. When we raise a third cluster of problems—about
the relation between the material and its processing, i.e., between the object and
the method of science—the debate must again focus on what is determined by what:
the object by the method, or vice versa. Some, like Stumpf, suppose that all dif-
ferences in method are rooted in differences between the objects. Others, like Rick-
ert, are of the opinion that various objects, both physical and mental, require one
and the same method. [12] But, as we see, we do not find grounds for a demarcation
of the general from the special science here either..
All this only indicates that we can give no absolute definition of the concept
of a general science and that it can only be defined relative to the special science.
From the latter it is distinguished not by its object, nor by the method, goal, or
result of the investigation. But for a number of special sciences which study related
realms of reality from a single viewpoint it accomplishes the same work and by the
same method and with the same goal as each of these sciences accomplish for their
own material. We have seen that no science confines itself to the simple accumu-
lation of material, but rather that it subjects this material to diverse and prolonged
processing, that it groups and generalizes the material, creates a theory and hy-
potheses which help to get a wider petspective on reality than the one which follows
from the various uncoordinated facts. The general science continues the work of
the special sciences. When the material is carried to the highest degree of gener-
alization possible in that science, further generalization is possible only beyond the
boundaries of the given science and by comparing it with the material of a number
of adjacent sciences. This is what the general science does. Its single difference
from the special sciences is that it carries out its work with respect to a number
of sciences. If it carried out the same work with respect to a single science it would
never come to the fore as an independent science, but would remain a part of that
single science. The general science can therefore be defined as a science that re-
ceives its material from a number of special sciences and carries out the further
processing and generalization of the material which is impossible within each of
the various disciplines.
The general science therefore stands to the special one as the theory of this
special science to the number of its special laws, i.e., according to the degree of
generalization of the phenomena studied. The general science develops out of the
need to continue the work of the special sciences where these end. The general
science stands to the theories, laws, hypotheses and methods of the special sciences
as the special science stands to the facts of the reality it studies. Biology receives
material from various sciences and processes it in the way each special science does
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