1984 - The Fallacy of the Latest Word. the Case of 'Pietism and Science

7/23/2019 1984 - The Fallacy of the Latest Word. the Case of 'Pietism and Science'

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The Fallacy of the Latest Word: The Case of "Pietism and Science"Author(s): Robert K. MertonSource: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 89, No. 5 (Mar., 1984), pp. 1091-1121Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2779084.

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2/32

The

Fallacy

of

the Latest Word: The Case

of

"Pietism and Science"'

Robert K. Merton

Columbia University

The resiliency exhibited by some theories or derived hypotheses,

despite

their

periodically

"conclusive"

refutation,

is

examined

by

taking

the

generic hypothesis

on the

connection between ascetic

Protestantism and the emergence of modern

science as a case in

point. Refutations proposed in the Becker critique of the specific

instance of Pietism and science strengthen

rather

than

weaken the

grounds for deepened interest in exploring both the generic and

specific hypotheses

insofar

as

the

critique

exhibits

the

fallacy

of

the

latest word. That fallacy rests on three common but untenable tacit

assumptions: (1)

that the

latest word

correctly

formulates

the

essen-

tials of the

preceding word while being immune to the failures

of

observation

and

inference imputed

to

what went before, (2) that

each

succeeding

work

improves

on its

knowledge base,

and

(3) that

theoretically

derived

hypotheses

are

to

be

abandoned as soon

as

they

seem to be empirically falsified. An Appendix examines evidence

on

the sociohistorical particulars

of the case.

Since it

appeared

in

the

mid-1930s,

the

hypothesis

connecting

Puritanism

with the rise of modern science

(Merton 1935;

[1936] 1968; [1938] 1970)2

1

This paper was supported

in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation

(SES 79 27238).

I

am indebted

to Annette Bernhardt, Karen Ginsberg, and, most

especially, Alfred Nordmann for research aid and to Harriet

Zuckerman, Robert

C.

Merton, Vanessa Merton, and

Byron Shafer for thoughtful suggestions. Requests for

reprints should be sent to Robert K. Merton, Fayerweather Hall, Columbia University,

New York, New York 10027.

2

Begun

in

1933, completed

as a doctoral dissertation in 1935,

partly published in the

form

of

three selected articles between

1935 and

1937,

this monograph

was

fully

published in 1938, appearing in Osiris: Studies on the

History and Philosophy of

Science at the invitation of

its founder-editor and my teacher, the doyen of historians

of science, George Sarton.

The citation

in

my

text

expressly

includes the 1935 disser-

tation, "Sociological Aspects

of Scientific Development in

Seventeenth-Century En-

gland," deposited

in

Harvard's

Widener Library, although

the Becker critique pays

no mind to this earliest version of what Kuhn (1977, p. 115-22)

and other historians

of science have come to describe

as

"the Merton thesis."

The

reference to

the

1935

document is intended as a reminder that this and the other formulations of a similar

hypothesis in the mid-1930s (Stimson 1935;Jones [1936] 1961,

1939) were independently

developed and, to this extent,

were mutually confirming rather

than any one of them

being derived from the others.

(C 1984 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

0002-9602/84/8905-0005$01.50

AJS Volume

89 Number 5 1091

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3/32

AmericanJournal of

Sociology

has

been frequently

assessed and

elaborated. So far as

I

know,

however,

the

article by

George

Becker

(1984)

is

the first

critique devoted

to

a

derivative hypothesis briefly set forth in those same writings which pro-

poses

similar

connections

between

Pietism

and

science.

The

Becker cri-

tique

serves several

useful

purposes. To begin

with, it provides

occasion

for

reexamining the

substantive

sociohistorical

questions

which

it

raises.

It

might also

lead a few

dedicated

readers to

examine the sources

listed

above

(rather

than the one

article

singled out

in

the

critique) to

see

for

themselves how far

that

critique captures

the basic

argument and its

theoretical

grounding.

Beyond that

and

perhaps

more

in

point

for

the

rapidly developing

sociology

of

science,

it

provides

an

instance

of

the

workings of the institutionalized norm of "organized skepticism": social

arrangementsfor the

critical

scrutiny of

knowledge claims

in

science

and

learning that

operate

without

depending on the

skeptical

bent of this or

that

individual (Merton

[1942]

1973,

pp.

277-78, 311, 339,

467-70; Storer

1966,

pp. 77-79,

116-26;

Zuckerman 1977,

pp.

89-93, 125-27). In

that

regard, the

critique

affords an

instructive example

of the

"fallacy of the

latest

word": the

tacit

assumption that the

latest

word is the best

word.

Elucidation of that

fallacy,

which has a

way of

turning up with

some

frequency

in

the

give-and-take of

cognitive

disagreements

in

the

domain

of science and scholarship, involves the puzzle presented by the Phoenix

phenomenon in

the historyof

systematic thought: the

continuing resiliency

of

theories or

theoretically derived

hypotheses such as

Durkheim's on

rates of

suicide

([1897] 1951) or Max

Weber's

on the role of

ascetic Prot-

estantism

in

the

emergence of modern

capitalism ([1904-5]

1930)

even

though

they

have

been

periodically

subjected

to

much and

allegedly

con-

clusive

demolition

("falsification").3

These generic

problems

in

the

sociology

of

science

provide

contexts for

examining the broad

implications of

the

Becker

critique.

Instances

of

fundamental

thematic

relevance-such

as the place of

extrascientific

bases

in

the

legitimation of early

modern

science-will be

considered

in

con-

junction

with the

fallacy

of

the

latest word and

organized skepticism.

However, Becker's

specific

charges of faulty

readings of the

evidence by

the

mid-1930s author

of the work under

examination

will be

considered

3The

Phoenix phenomenon

clamors for

systematic attention from

historians and so-

ciologists of science

concerned to clarify

the

significant role of controversy in

the growth

of scientific

knowledge.

However, limitations of space and

empathy for

a

fellow editor

forbid analysis of that phenomenon here and now. For contextual observations on the

social and cognitive

structure, dynamics,

functions, dysfunctions, and

sociology-of-

knowledge

significance of

controversies

in

science see Merton

([1961] 1973), Nowotny

(1975),

Markle and

Petersen (1981), and Scientific

Controversies, edited

by

A.

L.

Caplan and H.

T.

Engelhardt, Jr. (1984), especially

the

essays by

Ernan

McMullin

("How Do

Scientific Controversies End?")

and Everett

Mendelsohn ("The Political

Anatomy of

Controversies

in the Sciences").

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The

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separately. Since these criticismslargely

involve

conflicting interpretations

of German Pietist history,

dogma, and practice that have long been de-

bated by specialists, many may find them of remote interest despite their

substantive relevance. For

that reason, the specifics

in

Becker's

bill

of

indictment and their rebuttals are

sequestered

in

an

Appendix

of

Socio-

historical Particulars. It should be said

that

the

Appendix

took some

doing

by way of reassembling the

evidence

in

point. For, as may come as no

surprise, the author had failed

to keep the abundant notes prepared for

a

dissertation (and the subsequent article and monograph) written half a

century ago. (Still this episode

provides

an

object

lesson for

others:

do

not discard library, field, or laboratory notes prematurely; socially or-

ganized skepticism may operate imperfectly but it can work tenaciously.)

Anticipating the substance of

the Appendix,

I

must report that Merton

seems

to me to have been wrong on some details of exegesis and Becker

right, while on other and rather

more frequent details it seems to be moot

or

quite

the other

way.

But when it comes

to the

fundamental thematic

components of the hypothesis that relates Pietism to the emerging insti-

tution of

science,

it

appears

to

me

that

the

critic

is

on the

whole

mistaken,

not least as a result of having

overlooked the basic theoretical contexts

of

the sociohistorical particulars.

THEORETICAL CONTEXTS

AND

EMPIRICAL

KNOWLEDGE CLAIMS

The generic hypothesis under

discussion holds that at a time

in

Western

society

when science had

not

become elaborately institutionalized,

it ob-

tained

substantial

legitimacy

as an unintended

consequence

of

the

reli-

gious ethic and praxis of

ascetic Protestantism.

In

developing this

hypothesis, Merton undertook to examine the linkages of 17th-century

English Puritanism and science

in

some detail and went on to consider,

as an

empirical corollary, the possible

linkages

of the

contemporary

Ger-

man

Pietism

and

science.

This

extension can

be

described

as brief

if

it

is

agreed that

a

total

of

three pages (Merton [1936] 1968, pp. 643-45)

focused

on

Pietism

constitutes brevity. It

is

primarily

those

three

pages

which

have been subjected to the intensive

Becker critique.

The

critique

also

considers

briefly

the four

subsequent pages,

which

were given

over to

statistical data showing some

proclivity

for

19th-century

Protestant

youngsters (not Pietists, since statistical data on detailed sectarian affil-

iations

were simply not to be had) to enter the science-and-technology

oriented Realschulen.

The

paucity

of

these

crude

19th-century

statistical

data

in

contrast

to

the abundance of

highly

differentiated data on the

religious, social,

and

economic

status

of

students

today

has its own

interesting theoretical

im-

1093



5/32

American Journal

of

Sociology

plication. It suggests that the enduring scholarly

interest in the proposed

ascetic Protestantism-science linkage cannot reside

simply

in

that rather

limited, empirically identified correlation between religious affiliation and

interest in science. Much more controlled empirical generalizations are

now so easily come by that a crude statistical report of

this

kind

would

presumably be given short shrift. It surely would not engender a detailed

critique

half a

century

later. There must be

more

to the

hypothesis

than

the mere

correlation-as, indeed,

there is

when

one considers

the

theo-

retical contexts of the inquiry instead of confining oneself to

this

or

that

bit of

pertinent empirical

evidence.

The abiding interest in some empirical generalizations

and

lack of

sustained interest in others stem from the logical location of the particular

generalization.

A

continuing interest

is more

apt to

obtain

when the

particular sociohistorical finding is grounded

in

a

broader theoretical

framework which has proved to be substantively

instructive and heur-

istically fruitful. This,

I

suggest, is the case with the hypothesized

linkages

among Puritanism, Pietism, and science. Yet, having cited Science,

Tech-

nology and Society

in

Seventeenth Century England

in

its

very

first sen-

tence,

the

Becker

critique manages

to

maintain

a

perfect

silence about

parts

of

that monograph, readily accessible since

1938,

which

provide

the theoretical contexts of those three pages devoted to Pietism. It also

unaccountably ignores the author'spost-1936 indications

of

the successive

levels of theoretical abstraction in the monograph

that are set forth in

books

that Becker cites (Merton 1968, pp. 649-60; [1938] 1970, pp.

vii-

xxix) but does not fully utilize, as though amplifications beyond those

three

pages

and the

handful of

pages

on

religious

statistics

which he does

consider were somehow off limits.

Owing

to that

neglect

of theoretical

context,

the

critique

does

not and,

more

important, as a matter of

prin-

ciple, cannot strike

at

the sociological jugular

of the

generic

hypothesis

linking religion and science. For a text removed from

its context cannot

be

properly understood

or

paraphrased.4 As a result, the Becker

critique

can

at the most correct a

reading

of this or that

specific

bit of

evidence

while

managing,

as

we

shall

see

in

considering

the

fallacy

of the

latest

word,

to

introduce

questionable readings

of

other cited evidence and thus

to

produce

an

appreciated but basically modest

revision of

detail.

4 To reduce, not to obviate, such inadvertent misrepresentations, this paper will quote

relevant passages at length, since it cannot be supposed that readers will themselves

uniformly turn to the quoted sources. Indeed, the presumption of general trustwor-

thiness, rather than total freedom from error, underlies the system of organized skep-

ticism in science and scholarship. Members of the scholarly community therefore need

not confront the impossible task of individually studying

for themselves all the sources

of collateral interest to them. That function is assigned to peer reviewers

and

adopted

by

others

having

a

specialized

interest

in

particular subjects

and

problem

areas.

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The

Latest Word

Levels of Theoretical Abstraction in Sociohistorical Inquiry

Briefly summarized, three levels of substantive theoretical abstraction

give the original study whatever sociological significance it may have:

1. Least abstract level: the socio-historical

hypothesis

Ascetic Protestantism helped

[n.b.]

motivate and canalize the activities

of men'

in

the

direction

of

experimental

science. This is

the

historical

form

of

the

hypothesis. [Merton 1968,

p.

589]

A critically relevant context describes the logical status of such a so-

ciohistorical

idea

in

these terms:

It would have been fatuous for the author to maintain, as some swift-

reading commentators upon the book would have him maintain, that, with-

out Puritanism, there could have been no concentrated development of

modern science in seventeenth-century England [or, mutatis mutandis, with

regard to Pietism and science in Germany]. Such an imputation betrays a

basic failure to understand the logic of analysis and interpretation

in

his-

torical sociology.

In

such analysis,

a

particular concrete historical devel-

opment cannot be properly taken as indispensable to other concurrent

or

subsequent developments.

In

the case

in

hand,

it

is certainly

not

the case

that Puritanism

[or Pietism] was indispensable

in

the

sense

that

if it

had

not found historical expression at the time, modern science would not then

have emerged. The historically concrete movement of Puritanism [or Pie-

tism] is not being put forward as a prerequisite

to the

substantial thrust

of

English [or German]

science

in that

time; otherfunctionally equivalent

ideological movements could have served to provide the emerging science

with

widely acknowledged

claims to

legitimacy.

The

interpretation

in this

study assumes

the

functional requirement of providing socially

and cultur-

ally patterned support for

a

not yet

institutionalized

science;

it

does not

presuppose that only Puritanism [or Pietism] could have served that func-

tion. [These preceding italics are added.] As

it

happened, Puritanism [and

Pietism] provided major (not exclusive) support

in

that historical time

and

place. However, and this requires emphasis, neither does this functional

conception convert Puritanism [or Pietism] into something epiphenomenal

and

inconsequential. It,

rather than

conceivable

functional

alternatives,

happened to advance the institutionalization of science by providing a

substantial

basis

for

its

legitimacy. [Italics added.]

But the

imputed

drastic

simplification that would make Puritanism [or Pietism] historically

indis-

pensable only

affords

a

splendid specimen

of the

fallacy

of

misplaced

ab-

straction

(rather

than

concreteness).

It

would

mistakenly

have the author

undertake

an

exercise

in

historical

prophecy (to adopt

the convenient term

that Karl

Popper

uses to describe

efforts

at

concrete historical forecasts and

retrodictions), even though the much less assuming author

himself had

only

tried his hand at an analytical interpretation in the historical sociology of

science.

[Merton (1938) 1970; preface, pp. xviii-xix]

5The

reference

to "men" sans women in this quoted passage

is no inadvertent sexist

statement; there

simply

was no

place

provided for women during

the 16th and 17th

centuries in what

was known first as "natural philosophy" and

later as "natural science."

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American

Journal of Sociology

In

the light of this emphatically formulated

hypothesis that ascetic

Protestantism,

ncluding

Pietism, served

to legitimatea nascent

and

slightly

institutionalized science, it is passing strange to find Becker arguing at

length, as though he were

making a

new, different, and

opposed

obser-

vation, that the

Pietists

had a

fundamental

indifference,

if

not

outright hostility,

toward

all

knowledge,

in

whatever

discipline,

should

it

fail to

display

a

perceptible religious

con-

nection.

As

Francke

insisted,

for

example,

"All

sagacity, by whatever

name,

must have the honoring

of

God as

its goal

and

purpose

and it

must

employ

all

other means

on

behalf of

this

holy purpose" (in Heubaum

1893, p. 75).

[Can

this be the

archetypal

Pietist

leader Francke

speaking,

or is it

the

"'most representative Puritan in history,'"Richard Baxter (as quoted from

Flynn [1920],

p. 138, by Merton

[(1938) 1970], p.

60)?]

In

keeping

with this

dictum,

virtually every aspect

of

Pietist

education

tended

to

be

planned

and

legitimated by reference

to

religious objectives.

[Becker 1984, p.

1075]

.

.

.To be

certain, the primacy

assigned

to the

religious

motive was

not

entirely negative

in

its

consequences

for scientific

education.

The

study

of

the

natural

sciences

was

justifiable

not

only

as

a

means

of

promoting

re-

ligious

conviction but also as

a

potential tool

in

the

service

of

"good

works"

and collective

well-being.

Significantly, however,

this

same

religious

motive

also

tended

to

impose

limits on

the

study

of science

and the

quest

for

new

scientific

principles.

The

danger

always

existed

that this

study

would be-

come disassociated from religious concerns and that the fruits of such study

would lead to scientific claims and

knowledge

incompatible

with

established

theological

precepts. [Becker

1984, p. 1076]

As for Pietist

religious

opposition to immediate

"scientific

claims and

knowledge

incompatible with

established

theological

precepts," this pat-

tern,

too,

has

been noted

concerning the

great Reformers:

Luther, Me-

lanchthon, and

Calvin. As these

"attitudes of the

theologians dominate

over

the,

in

effect, subversive religious

ethic-as

did Calvin's authority

largely in

Geneva until the

first part of

the eighteenth

century-scientific

development may be greatly impeded.

.

.

. The implications of

these

dogmas found

expression

only with the passage of

time"

(Merton

[1938]

1970,

pp.

100-101). In short-and this,

of course, is one of

the principal

components

of

the

generic

sociohistorical hypothesis under

review-de-

spite such

immediate opposition to

seemingly dangerous

thoughts

in

sci-

ence, the

long-run consequences of

the

"sanctification of science"

as

exhibiting the "true

Nature of the

Works of God" and

as

contributing "to

the

Comfort of

Mankind" became

thoroughly secularized

as

the

religiously

legitimated institution and

practice of science developed. That such sanc-

tification can

ultimately

lead

to

secularization

is

precisely

the

sociohis-

torical

irony

under

examination.

2.

Middle-range

level:

dynamic

interdependence

of

the social

institutions

of religion

and

science

In its

more

general

and

analytical

form,

it

[the

hypothesis]

holds

that

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The

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science, like all

other social

institutions,

must

be supported

by values

of the

group

if it

is

to

develop.

There

is,

consequently,

not the

least

paradox

in

finding

that even so rational an

activity as scientific

research

is

grounded on

non-rational values. [Merton

1968, p.

589]6

The

theme of

Puritanism-and-science seemed

to

exemplify the "ideal-

istic"

interpretation

of history

in

which values

and

ideologies expressing

those values are

assigned a significant

role

in

historical

development.

The

[correlative] theme [in this

study] of the

economic-military-scientific

interplay seemed to exemplify the

"materialistic"

interpretation of history

in which the

economic substructure

determines the

superstructure of

which

science is

a

part. And,

as

everyone knows, "idealistic"

and "ma-

terialistic" interpretations

are

forever alien to one another,

condemned

to ceaseless contradiction

and

intellectual warfare. Still, what

everyone

should know from the history of thought is that what everyone knows

often turns out not to be

so

at all. The

model

of interpretation advanced

in this

study does

provide for the mutual

support and independent con-

tribution to the

legitimatizing

of science of both

the

value

orientation

supplied

by

Puritanism

[and

Pietism]

and the

pervasive belief in, perhaps

more

than the

occasionalfact of,

scientific solutions to

pressing economic,

military

and

technological problems.

[Merton (1938)

1970, preface, p.

xix;

italics

added]

3. Most

general

and abstract level: the

dynamic interdependence

of

social

institutions

A

principal sociological idea

governing

this

empirical inquiry holds that

the

socially patterned

interests,

motivations and

behavior

established

in

one institutional

sphere-say,

that

of religion

or

economy-are

inter-

dependent

with

the

socially patterned

interests,

motivations and

behavior

obtaining

in

other institutional

spheres-say,

that

of science. There are

various kinds

of such

interdependence,

but we

need touch

upon only

one of

these here.

The same individuals have

multiple

social

statuses

and

roles

[status-sets

and

role-sets]: scientific and

religious

and

economic

and

political.

This

fundamental linkage

in

social structure in itself

makes

for some

interplay

between

otherwise distinct institutional

spheres

even

when

they are

segregated

into

seemingly autonomous

departments

of

life. Beyond that, the social, intellectual and value consequences of what

is

done

in

one institutional domain

ramify into

other institutions, even-

tually

making for

anticipatory

and

subsequent concern

with

the

inter-

connections of

institutions.

Separate

institutional

spheres are

only partially

autonomous, not

completely

so.

It

is

only after

a

typically prolonged

development

that social

institutions, including

the

institution of

science,

acquire a

significant degree of

autonomy. [Merton

(1938) 1970, preface,

pp. ix-x]

6

As early as the mid-1930s, even a logical positivist such as Rudolf Carnap would be

writing, soon after the Merton 1936 article which he surely did not know, that

"psy-

chology and the social sciences . . . must locate the irrational [better: nonrational]

sources of both rational and illogical thought" (Carnap 1937, p. 118). This is akin to

the "Copernican revolution" in the sociology of knowledge which consists in the basic

"hypothesis that not only error, illusion, or unauthenticated belief but also the

discovery

of truth is socially (historically) conditioned. As long as attention was focused only on

the social determinants of ideology, illusion, myth, and moral norms, the sociology of

knowledge could not emerge" (Merton 1968, pp. 513-14).

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American Journal of

Sociology

This condensed

sketch of the

successively abstract theoretical contexts

of the

sociohistorical

hypothesis requires

some theoretical and

methodo-

logical explication. It has, I believe, implications that extend much beyond

the

study

under review.

A

Counterintuitive and

Counterpositivistic

Hypothesis

First, it is proposed that continuing

interest

in

the specific sociohistorical

hypothesis derives from

its being identified as a case

in

point of the

varied

nature of dynamic interactions between

the institutions of

religion and

science

in

differing

sociohistorical contexts. It

is this

middle-range hy-

pothesis which was at the bottom of that inquiry mounted half a century

ago. The

hypothesis had a

distinct

theoretical

interest

all

its own-back

in

the

1930s, since it ran counter to the received

positivistic lore

of

the time

which

declared

as

virtually self-evident that the

principal,

if

indeed not

the

unique, relation between science and

religion was

one of

conflict and

clash. At least to

those

reared on

such books with their

positivistic

titles

as John W. Draper's

History of

the

Conflict

between

Religion

and

Science

(1875

and many more editions, with

translations into 10

languages) and

Andrew

D.

White's

History of

the

Warfare

of

Science with

Theology

in

Christendom (1896), it seemed improbable, if not downright absurd, that

a

religious

ethic and

praxis

could

have contributed

to

the

legitimation

and

advancement

of

science

which,

it

appears,

was

steadily

engaged

in

undermining the

dogmatic foundations of

theology

and

religion. Witness

only

the heretical fate of

Giordano

Bruno,

burned alive after trial

by

the

Catholic

Inquisition,

and

Michael

Servetus,

denounced

by

Calvin and

burned alive after trial

by

the

magistrates

of Geneva. In

good positivistic

style

of a

parochial sort,

it

was no

great leap

from such

exemplary episodes

to

a belief

in

the

logical

and

historical

necessity

for

conflict between

religion and science in all their aspects.7

The

Role of

Rationality

in

Emerging

Modern

Science:

Pietism

as a

Strategic Polar Case

The 1930s study

undertook the collateral

inquiry into a possible Pietism-

science

connection to

supplement

the

fairly

detailed and extensive

inquiry

into

the

Puritanism-science connection. As

expressions

of

ascetic Prot-

estantism,

the two had much

in

common.

Indeed,

the

17th-

and

18th-

7Since this theoretical

context is not being

newly identified,

the paragraph

continues

to draw on

the 1970 preface to the Merton (1938) monograph.

The legendary

aspects

of the life

and mind of the

Hermetic magician

and

scientist

Bruno are handled

in

magisterial

style by Yates (1964);

Mason

(1953) deals with the

relation of

Servetus to

Calvin

in

connection

with the new astronomy and

the

discovery

of the lesser

circulation

of the

blood.

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The Latest Word

century Cotton Mather, the celebrated

Puritan minister

who was

himself

deeply devoted to

the new

science,8

had noted the

close resemblance

of

such Protestant movements, remarking that " 'ye American puritanism

[is] . . . much of a piece with ye Frederician

pietism'

"

(retrieved

from

the archives by Kuno Francke

[1896], p. 63, and quoted by

Merton

[(1936)

1968], p. 643).

More specifically and more

in

point for the sociohistorical

hypothesis

under review,

Pietism

shared

all but one of the

elements of the

Puritan

ethos which had been taken to contribute to the rise

of modern

English

science. Briefly itemized, these elements

of Puritanism were

(1)

a

strong

emphasis

on

everyday

utilitarianism, (2)

intramundane interests

and ac-

tions (Weber's "inner-worldly asceticism"), (3) the belief that scientific

understanding

of

the world of nature

serves

to

manifest the

glory

of God

as "the

great Author of Nature," (4) the

right and

even the

duty

to

chal-

lenge various forms of authority, (5) a strong streak of antitraditionalism,

all

these coupled with the exaltation of both

(6) empiricism

and

(7)

ra-

tionality. Albeit with differing

degrees of intensity of adherence

to

some

of these

elements, the

ethos

of Pietism was

significantly equivalent, except

for

the strong exception of an emphasis on

rationality.

It is

well known that Pietism,

in

its various forms, was given to "en-

thusiasm and irrationalism,"emphasizing "the emotional as opposed to

the

rational"

(Pinson 1934, chap.

1

and

p. 36). Thus, just

as

Quakerism

and the later "enthusiastic"

Methodism provided cases that bear on the

relative significanceof rationality for an emerging interest in science within

the

English tradition, so, too,

it was

assumed,

would

"enthusiastic" Pie-

tism as a weaker

counterpart

in

Germany.

Max Weber had

made

ana-

lytical comparisons among the

varieties of Anglo-American Puritanism

and Pietism. For the immediate

purposes of the 1930s study, most in point

was his conclusion that "all

in

all, when we consider German Pietism

from the

point of view important for us, we must admit a vacillation and

uncertainty

in

the

religious basis of

its

asceticism which makes

it

definitely

weaker than

the

iron

consistency

of

Calvinism,

and

which is partly the

result of Lutheran

influence and

partly of its emotional character"(Weber

[1904-5] 1930, pp. 128-39, at p.

137;

italics

added).

In

drawing

on Weber's

observations on this emotional element in Pie-

tism,

the Becker

critique apparently

fails to

recognize

that it is

precisely

this difference

from many Puritan sects

which made Pietism a strategic

8

"One of the persistent popular fallacies is the belief that the American pulpit, dom-

inated

throughout

the

period by New

England

Puritanism,

was

antagonistic

to

science.

It

was, on the

contrary,

a

powerful ally

in

many

instances.

.

. .

Increase

and

Cotton

Mather, the foremost

American

Puritans . . .

labored

earnestly

to

use science as

a

bulwark for

religion,

and in the course of this

self-appointed

task

served an

important

educational function"

(Hornberger [1937], p.

13;

for

details,

see

Hornberger

[1935]

and

the

monumental volumes by

Perry Miller,

The

New

England Mind

[(1939) 1954]).

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American Journal of Sociology

polar

case for

examining

the relative importance

of

rationality

for

creating

an interest

in science and for

conferring religiously

based

legitimacy

on

the emerging science. In this the critique cannot be greatly faulted. For

though the Merton study of

the 1930s cautiously qualified

the similarities

between

Puritanism and Pietism

by alluding

to the

variously mystical

"enthusiasm"

of the Pietist

movements,

it did so much too

sparingly

(owing perhaps

to the

unimposed

constraints of that

three-page

discus-

sion). This it did

in

the following excessively condensed,

imperfectly

expressed, formally unexplicated,

and therefore rather

enigmatic

for-

mulation of the logic underlying the selection of Pietism

as a

potentially

strategic

case for

comparison

with the more

thoroughly

examined case

of

English Puritanism: "Pietism, except for its greater 'enthusiasm,' might

almost be

termed the continental

counterpart

of Puritanism.

Hence,

if

our

hypothesis

of the association

between Puritanism

and interest

in

sci-

ence and

technology

is warranted,

one would

expect

to

find the same

[sic]

correlation among

the Pietists. And such

was

markedly

the case"

(Merton

[1936] 1968, p. 643;

italics

added).

With the wisdom

of some 50

years

of

hindsight

and

selective accu-

mulation of knowledge (and,

more dubiously,

with the alleged wisdom

of

age),

I

am inclined to fault Merton's

early study

at this

point,

as Becker

does not, in three related respects. First, the study could have emphasized

the

point

that the element of

rationality

in

a

supportive

religious

ethos is

evidently

not a

necessary

condition

for a derived interest

in

science and

that the other

elements

in

the Pietist ethos

were robust

enough

to

generate

such interest.

Second,

it

now seems

evident that the cases of Pietism

and

Puritanism

could

have been compared

in

detail,

at least

in

qualitative

fashion, to

assess the

relative

importance

of

differing

intensities of adherence to each

of the elements and to

consider

how each of

these,

as well as clusters of

them, may

have contributed differentially

to the

legitimizing

of newly

emerging

science.

Third,

the

study might

have taken further advantage of the strategic

polar

cases to isolate the role of

rationality

in

affecting

the kinds of

science

that became of

prime

interest, instead of confining the

inquiry to the

question

of an interest

in

the sciences

generally.

That line of

inquiry

(suggested

to me

by

Robert C. Merton) would explore the possibility

that

Puritanism and Pietism

might have generated interest in substantively

differing fields of science and in significantly differing styles of scientific

work. The streak of antirationalism

in

Pietism

might

have led to

prime

interest

in

the

largely

descriptive (rather

than

analytical)

kinds of science

advocated

by

Francke

(cf.

Merton

[1936] 1968, p. 643,

n.

62)

and

might

have led to a focus on the tinkering technical interest of

the practical

inventor rather than on work

deriving in some deductive style from sci-

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The Latest Word

entific theory.

In

contrast, the kinds of

science

proving

more

congenial

to the Puritan ethos with

its

inclusion

of an

emphasis

on

rationality might

tend to be, to put it anachronistically, of a more nearly hypothetico-

deductive sort,

in

which

experiment

and observation more

fully

connect

with

an often mathematically expressed sequence

of

deductive reasoning.

However all this may in fact turn out, that study of the

mid-1930s did

not venture to consider this kind of query about

such

possible

conse-

quences

of the

presence

or absence of

rationality

as an element

in

the

religious ethos.

The Pietism-Science Connection as an Unintended Consequence

Along with being a strategic case for assessing

the place of rationalism

in

emerging types of "new science" and serving

further to instance the

perspective that rejects the positivistic view of primarily or wholly con-

flicting relations between religion and science,

the Pietism case held a

third kind of theoretical interest. As was heavily emphasized

in

the mono-

graph in which the pages on Pietism are

embedded, the hypothesized

relation

between

ascetic

Protestantism

and

the emergence

of

modern

sci-

ence

was largely an unintended consequence of

the

religious

ethic and

related patterns of action (religiously derived practice) instead of being

only

the

result of direct and deliberate support

of

science

by religious

leaders (Merton [1938] 1970, pp. 79, 100-102, 136). This evidently

held

particular

interest for the author since

in

the

same

year

as the article

"Puritanism, Pietism and Science" was published, he was also arguing

that the unanticipated consequences of purposive social

action (Merton

1936) constitute a principal pattern of social and cultural change.

As we

shall see before we examine the differing

readings

of the

specific

historical

evidence by Merton and by Becker

in the

Appendix, the critique

fails to

pay adequate

attention to these

(and

the

other)

theoretical

aspects

of the

original study which,

to

my mind, give

it

any

but

the

most

parochial

descriptive interest.

The

result

is

that

the

otherwise well-mounted

evi-

dentiary critique reverts,

rather more than is

indicated,

to some of the

long-standing historical debates over

the

character of

the

varieties of

Pietism and of its historical role. The neglect of theoretical contexts pro-

vides one

component of the fallacy of the latest word

in

scholarly and

scientific

controversy.

THE

FALLACY OF

THE

LATEST WORD

The

fallacy consists

in

the usually tacit belief that the latest word on a

given subject

or

problem

is

necessarily the best word, at least pro tem,

if

indeed it is not the definitive, once-and-for-all

word. Sometimes the

1101



13/32


fallacy is committed by

the author of the most recent

word,

sometimes

by its readers,

and sometimes

by

both

in

an

unwitting complicity.

If stated

explicitly, it is a position that will not readily claim many adherents. Yet

it has a way of turning up

implicitly in the course of those scholarly

controversies which arise regularly

in

accord with

the

norm and practice

of socially organized skepticism.

At

a

surface

glance,

there

seems to be

some merit

in

the

assumption

that the latest

scientific or

scholarly

word

is apt to be better than what has gone before. For once a theoretically

derived hypothesis and

its supporting evidence

have been

put forward,

each succeeding work on

the hypothesis can

draw

critically

on the pre-

ceding materials and thus presumably improve

on

them

by

rooting

out

previous errors and replacing them with new provisional truths. But, I

suggest,

that

surface plausibility

rests

on a tissue of

deep-seated

and

questionable assumptions.

A

first tacit assumption

holds that although an author developing

a

hypothesis has misperceived, misinterpreted,

or

misreported

the assem-

bled

evidence that invites or supports the hypothesis,

the critic

accurately

perceives, interprets, and reports the

text and the evidence under

review.

That assumption is manifested

in part by the absence of overt signs that

the critic is critical of his criticism,

recognizing that it, too,

is variously

subject to the risk of faults like those attributed to the earlier text.

As a case

in

point, the Becker critique confidently

assumes that

in

"the

investigation of sources" the critic's later readings are patently

more ac-

curate than readings dating from

the mid-1930s. Thus the

critique

an-

nounces that "although Merton's

assertions have some basis in fact, they

invite distortion because of factual inaccuracies, overstatements,

and

omissions

regarding

the

overriding

objectives

of education as envisaged

by

Pietistic

pedagogues" (Becker 1984, p. 1072). Here,

and throughout the

critique, there

is

not

the

least

hint

that

the critic's own

perspectivist

readings and exegeses of the

same texts might possibly be subject to

distortion

owing

to "inaccuracies, overstatements, and omissions." Yet,

as

is

suggested by

the

details gathered

in the

Appendix,

some matters of

fact and

interpretation

in

the history

of

German

education singled out

in

the

critique are

at

least moot,

with authorities by now somewhat worn,

such as Heubaum

([1905] 1973)

and Ziegler (1895), cited by both

Merton

and Becker, agreeing

on some points and being at odds on others instead

of

uniformly supporting

the position set forth

in

the critique.

Since it provides a varied symptomatic instance of the hazard of er-

roneous readings, damaging omissions, and questionable interpretations

in

a critique which is pro tem

the latest word on its subject,

I

shall

center,

in

dogged detail,

on a

single

passage

that

deals with the

sociological

literature on the central hypothesis

rather than with the historical

liter-

ature

on

theology

and

German

pedagogy (which

I

examine

in

the

Ap-

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The Latest Word

pendix). Contrasting

that

passage

in

the

1984

critique

with

a

related

passage

in

the 1930s study also provides

a distinct

side

benefit

by collating

the scattered paragraphs in Weber'swritings which deal with the subject

at

hand.

I

begin by turning

to

Becker's

conclusion,

where he

writes:

That Pietism failed to provide a

powerful impetus

to

science

is not

nec-

essarily inconsistent with

Weber's

observations

on

the relation of

ascetic

Protestantism and science. Indeed,

while Weber

in

the

conclusion

of

The

Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of

Capitalism ([1904-5]

1930, p. 183)

ten-

tatively posited a

link

between

ascetic Protestantism

and

science,

he

was

nevertheless aware that ascetic Protestantism

could

also

have adverse con-

sequences for the

development of

science.

For

example, he wrote

in

General

Economic

History ([1923] 1950, p.

270) that "the ascetic sects

of

Protes-

tantism have also

been disposed to have

nothing to do with science, except

in a situation where material

requirements of everyday

life were involved"

(italics added [by

GB]). This description appears to apply to

German

Pie-

tism. [Becker

1984, p. 1088]

Once

anatomized,

this

passage

in

the

penultimate

paragraph

of

the

critique illustrates

amply why the latest word need not be

the best word.

The passage exhibits some cognitive

costs of the critic's

decision to wear

blinders

by confining

himself to those few

pages devoted

to the

auxiliary

Pietism-sciencehypothesis while wholly

ignoring relevant

contexts. Thus,

we

are told that

the

critique

is

not

necessarily

at odds with

Weber's views

since he "wrote

in

General Economic

History"

a

sentence,

which the critic

partly italicizes

for

emphasis, declaring that ascetic

Protestant sects "have

also been

disposed to have

nothing

to do

with science,"

except

in

a

specified

type

of

situation.

The

critic might have done well to

attend

to

a

cautionary

note about

Wirtschaftsgeschichte (translated by Frank H.

Knight as Gen-

eral

Economic History)9 appearing in both the

article and the

monograph

under review. He

might

then

have hesitated to

say

that

"Weber

wrote"

that sentence. He might instead have gone on to inform readers that this

book of Weber's

must

be

read with

caution, particularly when

it

seems

to

contradict positions Weber repeatedly

expressed

in

books he did write

with

typical

care. For as that

cautionary

note

observed,

. .

. it is

surprising to note the statement

accredited

to

Max

Weber that the

opposition

of

the Reformers is sufficient reason for not

coupling Protes-

tantism

with scientific interests. See

Wirtschaftsgeschichte(Miinchen, 1923,

314).

This

remark is

especially unanticipated since

it

does

not

at all

accord

9

It may be of

interest, and not only to

present-day sociologists

making

critical

sys-

tematic use of quantitative and qualitative citation analysis, that Frank Knight (in

Weber

[1923] 1950) opens

his

translator's

preface by

noting

that

"Max

Weber is

probably

the most outstanding name in

German social

thought since Schmoller, and a recent

survey finds

him

the most

quoted sociologist

in

Germany."

Incidentally, Weber's ci-

tations were being reported by

the then young

Louis Wirth (1926) writing a decade

before his sterling translation,

along

with

Edward Shils, of

Mannheim's Ideology and

Utopia. (See American

Journal of Sociology,

November 1926, p.

464.)

1103



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American

Journal of Sociology

with

Weber's discussion of the same

point

in

his other works.

Cf.

Reli-

gionssoziologie, I, 141, 564;

Wissenschaft als Beruf

(Miunchen, 1921, 19-

20). The

probable explanation is that

the first is not

Weber's statement,

since the

Wirtschaftsgeschichte was

compiled

from

classroom notes

by

two

of

his students who

may

have

neglected

to

make the requisite distinctions.

It is unlikely that Weber

would have

made the elementary error

of

confusing

the Reformers' opposition to certain

scientific discoveries

with

the unfore-

seen

consequences

of

the

Protestant

ethic, particularly

since he

expressly

warns

against the failure to make such

distinctions

in

his

Religionssozio-

logie. [Merton (1936)

1968, p. 634n; cf.

slight extensions in (1938) 1970,

pp.

100-101n]

That early

cautionary note is itself

incomplete. It

might have gone on to

observe that Weber himself had severe misgivings about these lectures

on

economic

history and

that

unlike volume

1

of the Gesammelte

Aufsfitze

zurReligionssoziologie, which he did

write, gather together,

and correct

in

galleys

during the last

year of his life (Marianne

Weber [1926]

1975,

p. 675; Parsons

in

Weber

[1904-5] 1930; Nelson

1974),

he

never

got

to

read and vet

the

Wirtschaftsgeschichte since this text based on

his

last

full

set of lectures at Munich in

that

same

year

was

reconstructed and

published only after

his

death.10

It

would thus

appear that that

lone

sentence from

the General Economic

History

should

carry

rather less

evidentiary weight than Weber's repeated and considered judgments to

the

contrary, from the time of

the first

appearance

of the

essay

on

the

Protestant

ethic in 1904-5

to its final revision in

1919-20 chiefly in

the

form

of

footnotes which,

supplying

new

evidence

and

rebuttals to criti-

cisms, run in

their entirety to about the

same length as the

text itself

(about 50,000 words

each).

And

then, as

though

the

critic were

in

collusion to

help identify the

fallacy of

the

latest word, this

neglect

of

the cognitive status of

Weber's

General Economic

History

is

coupled

with

other

neglects. Nary a word

is provided following up the references to Weberin the same ([1936]1968)

passage

and further

quotations from Weber

n

which he

states

his

tentative

conclusions

about

the

connections between

early

modern science

and

ascetic

Protestantism

generally

and Pietism

specifically.

To be

sure,

Weber

1o

As the German compilers and editors-the historian Professor S. Hellmann and the

economist Dr. M. Palyi-observed in their preface, "Even if Weber had lived

longer

he would not have given his Economic History to the public, at least not

in

the form

in which we have it here. Utterances of his prove that he regarded the work as an

improvisation with a thousand defects. .

. .

The situation just pictured set the task

of the editors and made it a difficult one. No manuscript or even coherent outlines by

Weber himself were available. There were

found

in

his

papers only

a bundle of

sheets

with notes little more than catchwords set down

in a

handwriting hardly legible even

to those accustomed to it. Consequently, the text had

to

be restored from notes by

students,

who

willingly made

their notebooks available

for

several

months"

(Weber

1923, p. xvii). As we see, it was misleading for Merton to suggest that the editors

reconstructed the text from the notes of only two students.

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The Latest

Word

did not examine

the

hypothesis

in

detail,

concluding

his

classic

essay

programmatically by

describing one

of the "nexttasks" as

that of searching

out the "significance of ascetic rationalism, which has only been touched

in the

foregoing sketch,"

for a variety of cultural

and social

developments,

among them "the

development of philosophical and

scientific

empiricism

. . . technical

development and . .

.

spiritual

ideals"

(Weber [1904-5]

1930, pp.

182-83). This

programmatic statement is at

least cited

in

the

critique. But again, nary a

word about the

abundant citations

and quoted

indications in

the 1930s

monograph of how all

this

looked to Weber,

especially after his

comparative

sociological studies

of

religion.

One

of the

ignored

references

in

Merton's

cautionary

passage

on the

GeneralEconomic History leads directly to this strong formulation: "Re-

ligion . . .

frequently

considers purely empirical

research, including that

of

natural

science,

as

more reconcilable to

religious interests than it

does

philosophy. This is the

case above

all in ascetic

Protestantism"

(Weber

[1920] 1978,

1:564, as translated by

Gerth and Mills

in

Weber

[1919]

1946,

p. 350).

Furthermore,

the

critique

has

nothing

to

say

about Merton's

observation that

scientists

oriented toward

ascetic

Protestantism saw the

study

of nature as

enabling

a

fuller

appreciation

of His

power

and cre-

ation. By an

extension of this

religiously

based definition

of their

role,

"nothingin Nature is too mean for scientific study."Merton observes that

"Max

Weber remarks this

same attitude

in

Swammerdam,

whom

he

quotes

as saying 'Here I

bring you

the proof

of

God's

providence

in

the

anatomy

of

a

louse'

"

(Merton [1938]

1970,

104n, citing Wissenschaft als

Beruf [Weber1919], p. 19). Here the

1930s

author of

Science, Technology

and

Society, then

writing

the

latest word on the

subject, actually scanted

Weber's

position.

Had

he foreseen the

1984

Becker

critique,

he

might

have continued

with the

quotation from Weber

who then went on

to say

apropos

Pietism

and science that

"you

will see

[in

Swammerdam's state-

ment]

what

the scientific

worker,

influenced

(indirectly) by

Protestantism

and

Puritanism,

conceived

to

be his task: to show

the

path

to

God.

People

no

longer

found this

path among

the

philosophers,

with

their

concepts

and

deductions.

All

pietist

theology

of

the

time,

above

all

Spener,

knew

that

God was not to be

found

along

the road

by

which the

Middle

Ages

had

sought him.

God

is

hidden,

His

ways

are not our

ways,

His

thoughts

are

not

our

thoughts.

In

the exact

sciences,

however,

where one could

physically

grasp

His

works, one

hoped

to

come

upon

the

traces of what

He planned for the world" (Weber[1919] 1946, p. 142).

These, then,

exemplify some of the

pertinent materials

wholly ignored

in

the

critique,

presumably

as

a

result of the

decision

to confine

attention

to

those

few

pages focused

on

Pietism

in

the

1936 article

(and

thus

to

ignore also

the

somewhat fuller

documentation found

in

the 1938 mono-

graph).

That

decision

entailed

a

thorough neglect

of the

theoretical con-

1105



17/32


texts provided elsewhere in the article and monograph which, as I have

noted, qualify and specify the generic hypothesis of the connections be-

tween ascetic Protestantism and science by identifying the basic mecha-

nisms, such as unintended consequences, rather than only direct doctrinal

support

that

operated to provide those connections. Even so, had the

critic read even the comparable handful of pages in the monograph, he

might have had second thoughts about the position he imputes to Weber.

For he would have found there Weber's virtually last observation on the

matter-this, in the first volume of the Religionssoziologie ([1920] 1978,

p. 533),

which he had

prepared for publication shortly before

his

death-

to the effect, stated almost

in

the vein of the Pietist leader, Francke, that

useful knowledge, exemplified above all by the orientations of empirical

natural science and geography which provide a down-to-earth clarity of

realistic thought and specialized knowledge, was

first

systematically

cul-

tivated

as the

purpose of education

in

Puritan circles and

in

Germany

especially

in

Pietistic circles (as quoted

in

Merton [1938] 1970, p. 124, n.

50).

On

this,

as

is

so

often

the

case

with related

matters,

Troeltsch

([1912]

1931, 2:958) is at one with Weber, writing

in

rather strong language,

"

'. . .

the ideals of

Pietism

with

regard

to education

are

exactly

the same

as

those

of

Puritanism.'

"

Finally, there is evidence that both author and critic are subject to the

hazard of overlooking highly apposite materials. Merton ([1938] 1970, p.

59) quotes only a smidgen

of

what

is

perhaps

Weber's

strongest and

most

instructive passage on the complex relation between Pietism

and

science,

while Becker

(1984) says nothing at

all about

it.

The Weber observations

call

for

full

quotation

in accord with the

policy plainly being adopted

here of quoting key passages at some length in order to avoid the second-

order hazards of excessively brief paraphrases,which

can

easily contribute

to

the misinterpretations and misunderstandings that keep

the

latest crit-

ical

word from being necessarily the best word on a subject, hypothesis,

or

conjecture.

In

one of those

long footnotes,

Weber once

again

disowns

any intention

of

conducting

a

detailed investigation

but

nevertheless

man-

ages

to

say

much

in

little:

The decided propensity

of

Protestant asceticism

for

empiricism,

rationalized

on

a

mathematical

basis,

is

well

known,

but cannot be further

analyzed

here....

For the attitude of Protestant asceticism

the

decisive

point

was,

as

may perhaps

be most

clearly

seen

in

[the Pietist] Spener's Theologische

Bedenken I, p. 232; III, p. 260, that just as the Christian is known by the

fruits

of his

belief,

the

knowledge

of

God and

His

designs

can

only

be

attained

through

a

knowledge

of

His

works.

The

favourite

science

of

all

Puritan, Baptist,

or

Pietist

Christianity

was thus

physics,

and next

to

it

all those other natural sciences

which used

a

similar

method, especially

mathematics.

It

was

hopedfrom

the

empirical knowledge of

the

divine laws

of

nature

to ascend to a

grasp of

the

essence

of

the

world,

which

on

account

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The

Latest Word

of the

fragmentary nature

of

the divine revelation, a Calvinistic

idea,

could

never be attained by the

method of metaphysical speculation. The empir-

icism

of the seventeenth century was the means for asceticism to see God

in

nature. It seemed to lead to God, philosophical

speculation away from

Him.

In

particular Spener considers the Aristotelean

philosophy to have

been the most harmful

element

in

Christian tradition.

. .

. The

significance

of

this attitude

of

ascetic

Protestantism

for

the development

of

education,

especially technical education, is well known." Combined with

the attitude

tofides

implicita they furnished

a pedagogical programme. [Weber (1920),

1:141-42, as translated by

Talcott Parsons

in

Weber ([1904-5] 1930), p.

249, n.

145;

italics

added]

Once

the

fallacy

of the latest

word

is

explicitly recognized

as a

distinct

hazard, even in critical accounts of the most civil variety (such as the

Becker

critique), that recognition can serve as a prophylaxis

against a

second

assumption underlying the fallacy. That is the

assumption of an

inexorable, unilinear progress in knowledge, despite minor

and temporary

fluctuations in it.

Such

an

assumption

of

steady cognitive

progress

holds

that

each

succeeding

work

improves

on what has

gone before, since

it

profits from that prior knowledge

base. This is one of

those half-truths

which,

especially

when it remains

tacit,

leads

to

the naive belief in a

steady unilinear rather than

in

a

variously

selective and uneven cumu-

lation of scientific knowledge. This conception of progress is of a kind

that was

being emphatically

rejected

in the

very sociological circles

in

which the mid-1930s hypotheses on

ascetic

Protestantism

and

science

were

being

developed

in

detail.

Perhaps the most

emphatic

sociological

voice of the time

energetically

repudiating the naive versions of

unilinear progress

in

knowledge

was

Pitirim

Sorokin's, most particularly in the massive four volumes of his

Social and Cultural

Dynamics

(1937). Assisting

Sorokin

in

exploring

the

rival

hypotheses of fluctuations

and oscillations

in the

historical devel-

opment of science, the author of "Puritanism, Pietism and Science" traced

the

cyclical

vicissitudes

of such

scientific ideas as vitalism,

mechanism,

and

abiogenesis

in

biology; wave and corpuscular theories

of

light

in

physics;

and cosmogonic theories

(Sorokin

and Merton

1937, chap. 12).

Of most

immediate interest

is the

observation

appearing

in

the

original

protocol by the junior author

stating with regard

to the

fluctuation

of

atomic

doctrines that

various

theories "rose and

gathered

a

power

im-

"

The phrase "is well known,"

here and in

the first sentence of Weber's long footnote,

tantalizes rather than informs. The allusion may be to the writings of Troeltsch, but

it hints at a rather wider scholarly consensus on the posited

connections

between

ascetic Protestantism and science. Perhaps this impression that

those connections were

well established and well understood

lay behind Weber's recurrent disclaimer in his

sociology of religion; e.g., "We

cannot

speak

here of the

significance

[of

Puritanism]

for the

development

of

technology

and natural science"

(as quoted

by

Merton

1(1938)

1970], p. 59, n. 9).

1107



19/32


pressive enough to

be

accepted as the

'last word

of

science' by the leading

scientists

or

thinkers

of the

period.

At other

periods they declined and

sometimes practically disappeared" (p. 445).

Still, though

awareness of the

fallacy

of the latest

word

can

guard

against

a

naive

assumption

of

steady

progress

in which all

that follows

improves on what precedes,

it

need not

lead

us to the

opposite

error

of

denying

the selective and uneven

accumulation of

various kinds of sci-

entific knowledge over the centuries.

To

discard

the

Comtean and

later

Edwardian faith

in

unyielding intellectual

progress

in

science and

tech-

nology does

not

require

us to

deny

the

patent

advancement of such knowl-

edge, despite

all its

intervening errors, garden

paths,

and

misconceptions.

To put it concretely, the beautiful Greek mythology could summon up no

more scientific and technological imagination than to endow the doomed

Icarus with wings of feathers and wax. And

though

we

may

not like

the

noisy Concorde,

we must concede that it derives from

a

somewhat better

knowledge of aerodynamics than that.U Still,

all

this represents only the

result of selective accumulation

of

knowledge,

a

conception

that allows

for

error, misinterpretations, and

misattributions

in

particular

cases. This

is consequently remote

from

the fallacy of

assuming

that

the latest

word

need be

the

best and most reliable word.

A third often tacit but

sometimes explicit

premise making

for the

fallacy

of

the latest word holds that

a

hypothesis

or

underlying theory

is

obviously

to be

abandoned as

soon as

it appears to have

been

empirically

falsified.

At the

extreme,

this

premise

maintains that a

single counterexample jus-

tifies

rejection

of

a

hypothesis.

Were this

so

in actual

practice,

as

distinct

from certain

epistemological doctrines,

the

mortality

rate of

scientific

ideas, high as it is, would rise

dramatically.

But

the

critical

pragmatism

which

commonly

obtains in actual scientific

practice

seldom

operates

in

such strong terms of easy falsification. Decades after the beginnings of

Karl

Popper's ([1934] 1959; 1963; 1972) powerful and evolving doctrine

of

falsification,

the fundamental

question

still

endures:

When are

we

to

retain a hypothesis or theoretical conception in the face of facts that seem

to

refute

it?

In

short,

when are we to trust the

governing idea; when,

the

contravening

"fact"?

Or,

as

applied

to

the case

in

point,

does the Becker

critique require

us to

reject

or

severely modify

the

hypothesis

of the

Pietism-science connection as

tentatively derived

from

the generic hy-

pothesis

of

the ascetic Protestantism

hypothesis?

This appearsto be an instance in which both the generic andthe specific

12

For the welter of recent doctrines

on scientific

progress, see, among much else,

Lakatos (1978); Kuhn (1977), esp.

chap. 11; Laudan

(1977); Elkana (1981), pp. 53-

54. None of these

deny the palpable

facts of progress in science

but

they variously

construe its

character, forms, and mechanisms.

For

myself,

the

processes

of selective

accumulation of scientific

knowledge provide no basis

for the kind of inexorable pro-

gressivism implicit in the fallacy

of the latest word.

1108



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The Latest Word

hypotheses continue to remain on probation in the

sense

that all such

interpretations must be

considered provisional.

This

is

so in

the light of

what the differentiated methodological doctrine of Lakatos (1978, 1:8-

138)

describes as "sophisticated"ratherthan "naive

falsification" and

also

because

the questioned evidence in

this

case is

largely

either

peripheral

to the

hypothesis or, more important, is still on trial

among specialists.

Limitations of space preclude an

attempt to reconstructLakatos's complex

and detailed argument here (the omission

Documents

1984 - The Fallacy of the Latest Word. the Case of 'Pietism and Science