Chapter VII: The Classification of the Sciences

[Sidenote: _The theory of the forms of knowledge and the doctrine of the categories._]

The explanations given as to the various forms of knowledge are also explanations concerning the categories of the theoretic and theoretic-practical spirit: the intuition, the concept, historicity, type, number; and also quality and quantity and qualitative quantity, space, time, movement, and so on. They form part of that doctrine of the categories, in which the account of philosophy in the strict sense is completed. To ask what mathematics or history is, means to search for the corresponding categories; to ask what is the relation between history and mathematics, and in general how the various forms of knowledge are related to one another, means to develop genetically all these forms, which is precisely what we have attempted.

[Sidenote: _The problem of the classification of the sciences and its practical nature._]

But the difficult enquiry as to the forms of knowledge as categories has not been much in favour in recent times. Another problem has, on the other hand, acquired vogue. It has seemed more easy, but that is not so, because though artfully disguised, it is at bottom identical with the preceding problem. Instead of putting the question in the manner indicated above, which implies seeking out the constitution of the theoretic spirit, a modest request has been made for a classification of the various forms of knowledge, a _classification of the sciences._

Scant confidence in philosophic thought, and excessive confidence in naturalistic methods, have so operated that, unable to renounce the necessity of dominating the chaos of the various competing sciences and not wishing to have recourse to philosophic systematization, an attempt has been made to classify the sciences like minerals, vegetables, and animals. Even now there exist writers occupying professorships who claim to be specialists in classifying sciences. Volumes on this theme appear with an unprofitable frequency and abundance.

[Sidenote: _False philosophic character that it assumes._]

Certainly, if such writers and professors were to proceed in an altogether empirical manner, corresponding with their declarations, nothing could be said against their labours, beyond advising them not to discuss them philosophically in order that they may not waste time in misunderstandings, and to recognize their slight utility. But, as a fact, none of them contains himself within empirical limits, but each gives some philosophic and rational basis to the classification which he proposes. Thus there appear bipartitions of the sciences into _concrete_ and _abstract,_ into _historical_ and _theoromatic_(or nomotechnical), into sciences of the _successive_ and sciences of the _coexistent,_ or into _real_ and _formal;_ or _tripartitions,_ into sciences of _fact,_ of _law_ and of _value_; into _phenomenalist, genetic_ and _systematic_ sciences; and into similar partitions and groups, of which some are old acquaintances and correspond to functions of the spirit that we have already distinguished, while others, on the contrary, must be held to be false, because they confuse under the same name functions that are different and divide functions that are unique. But all of them, true or false, leave the empirical and direct themselves to the problem of Logic and of theoretic Philosophy. This is not the place to criticize them, because substantially it has already been done in the course of the exposition of our theories; and what is left would reduce itself to a criticism of minute errors, which finds a more suitable place in reviews dealing with books of the day than in philosophic treatises. So true is it that those classificatory systems pass with the day that witnessed their birth.

[Sidenote: _Coincidence of that problem with the search for the categories, when understood in a strictly philosophic sense._]

We are concerned only to demonstrate more clearly that the demand inherent in such attempts is identical with that which leads to the establishing of a doctrine of the categories or a philosophic system. It is indeed possible to discover now and then in the demands for a classification of the sciences, two demands, the one limited, the other wider. The first takes the form of a demand for a classification of the forms of knowledge, as in the Baconian system, and in the others which repeat the type. Here the sciences are divided according to the three faculties, memory (natural and civil history), imagination (narrative, dramatic and parabolical poetry), and reason (theology, philosophy of nature and philosophy of man). The other tends to a classification not according to gnoseological forms alone, but according to objects, according to all the real principles of being, as in the system of Comte and in those derived from it. Now a classification of the first kind coincides with researches relating to the forms of the theoretic spirit, and the problems that it exposes cannot be solved save by penetrating into the problems of these forms. Otherwise it is not possible to say if, for example, the Baconian classification be exact or no, and if not, where it should be corrected. But in passing to the other form of classification, according to objects or to the real principles of being, we pass from the sea to the ocean, because that coincides with the entire philosophic system. The classification of Comte, for example, is his positivism itself, and it is not possible to accept or refute or evaluate the one, without accepting or refuting or submitting to examination the other. There are people who ingenuously believe that they can understand things by representing them on a sheet of paper, in the form of a genealogical tree or of a table rich in graphic signs of inclusion and exclusion. But when we seriously engage upon the work, we perceive that in order to draw up the tree and construct the table, it is above all things needful to have understood them. The pen falls from the hand and the head is obliged to bend itself in meditation, when it does not prefer to abandon the dangerous game and amuse itself in other ways.

[Sidenote: _Forms of knowledge and literary-didactic forms._]

And this is just the occasion to make clear the distinction that we have on several occasions employed, between forms of knowledge and literary or didactic forms of knowledge, between the orders of knowledge and books. The arrangement of books is not always determined solely by the demand for the strict treatment of a determinate problem; very frequently, its motive is supplied by the practical need of having certain different pieces of knowledge collected together, in order not to be obliged to go and search for them in several places, that is to say, in their true places. Thus, side by side with scientific treatises properly so-called, are to be found scholastic compilations and manuals. Such are Geographies, Pedagogies, juridical or philological Encyclopædias, Natural Histories, and so on. Authors, even outside strictly scholastic limits, used formerly to consider it convenient sometimes to isolate, sometimes to unite certain orders of knowledge, and to baptize the mutilation or mixture with a particular name. It is evident that when dealing with these hybrid compilations and formations the philosopher and the historian of the sciences, who seek not books, but ideas, must carry out a series of analyses and syntheses, of disassociations and associations, without allowing themselves to be seduced by the authority of the writers or by the solidity of these mixtures, which have become traditional.

[Sidenote: _Prejudices arising from these last._]

But it is not an easy matter. Those mixtures are no longer ingenuous, nor are the practical motives that have determined them apparent. Around them has grown up a dense forest of philosophemes, of capricious distinctions, of false definitions, of imaginary sciences, of prejudices of every sort. Any one who has succeeded in discerning the genuine connections and attempts to separate the interlaced boughs, to isolate the trees and to show the different roots, any one who sets an axe to those wild tree-trunks, is horrified by cries and complaints, not less resonant than those that drove Tancred from the enchanted wood. And there is the traditionalist who admonishes us severely not to divide _natural_ groupings and not to introduce among them our own _caprice._ Thus he calls the capricious natural and the natural capricious. "What?" (has recently written the shocked Professor Wundt) "for the excellent reason that the search for the individual is historical search, must Geology be considered history and research relating to the glacial epoch be abandoned to the amiable interest of the historian?" And others lament that the ancient _richness_ of the sciences is destroyed by these simplifications, and call the confusion richness.

[Sidenote: _Methodical prologues to Scholastic Manuals and their powerlessness._]

It is true that in order to obviate the evil of confusion and the defective consciousness of the various kinds of research which have been mingled together, many authors are in the habit of prefixing to their books theoretic introductions, about the _method,_ as they call it, of their science. The special logic of the individual disciplines is to be sought (they say) in the books that treat of these. Manuals in the German language are especially notable for this arrangement, preceded, as they are, by the heaviest introductions, which occupy a great part of the volume or of the volumes of the book. They present a contrast to French and English books, which usually enter at once _in medias res._ This arrangement seems preferable: the German type has against it the sensible observation of Manzoni, that one book at a time is enough, when it is not more than enough. He who opens a historical book in order there to learn the particulars of an event, or a book on economics in order to learn how an economic institution works, should not be obliged to read the theory of historica events and disquisitions on the place of Economics in the system of the sciences. _"Il s'agit d'un chapon et non point d'Aristote,"_ as the judge in the _Plaideurs_ said to the advocate who went back in his speech to the _Politics_ of Aristotle. But, besides the literary contamination, there is also here the other inconvenience, that science and the theory of the sciences being different operations and demanding different aptitudes and preparations, the specialist who is competent in the first is usually not at all competent in the second; though he may be believed to be so, owing to a confusion of names. Why, indeed, should an expert on banking and Stock Exchange business be versed in the gnoseology of economic science? The affirmation of competence in the one on the strength of competence in the other constitutes a true and proper sophism _a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid._

[Sidenote: _The capricious multiplication of the sciences._]

Further, the specialist has his pride, which leads him to exaggerate what he practises and fail to recognize its true nature and limits. The multiplication of the _Sciences_ in our days has no other origin than this; the philosopher contemplates it with astonishment; it is a truly miraculous multiplication of the seven loaves of bread and five small fishes. A _new science_ is announced, whenever a crude idea passes through the brain of a professor. We are made glad with _Sociologies, social Psychologies, Ethnopsychologies, Anthropogeographies, Criminologies, comparative Literatures,_ and so on. Some years ago, an eminent German historian, having observed that some use might be made of genealogical and heraldic studies, generally abandoned to the cultivators and purveyors of the mania for birth and titles, instead of limiting himself to publishing his little collection of minute observations at once proclaimed Genealogy as a science, _Genealogie als Wissenschaft,_ and provided the appropriate manual. This begins by determining the _concept_ of Genealogy, and proceeds to study its relations with history, with the natural sciences, with zoology, with physiology, with psychology and psychiatry, and with the knowable universe.

[Sidenote: _The sciences and academic prejudices._]

Finally, the specialist is generally a teacher, and therefore accustomed to identify eternal ideal science with his real and contingent chair, and the organism of knowledge with that of the university faculties. Hence arises a fashion of conceiving the nature and scope of the sciences that has become habitual in the academic world. It consists of _personifying_ science, and telling this imaginary person what he has to do, without regard to whether the assignment of the task accords or no with the quality of the function. "Logic will be occupied with this, but yet will not neglect this other thing; it will benefit by casting a look on this third thing also, which is extraneous to its task, but not to its interest; nor will it fail to aid, with due regard, the student of an analogous matter, by giving to him suggestions, if not even rules." Whoever reads the scientific books of our times will recognize in this example, not a caricature, but a plan constantly repeated and applied. It was said of the poet Aleardo Aleardi that he treated the Muse like his maid-servant, since he was at every instant addressing himself to her and asking her something. The professor ends by treating Science like his steward, or at least his respectable consort, with whom he naively comes to an agreement regarding the portions that are to form the meals of the day, and other matters concerning the management of the family.

THIRD PART

THE FORMS OF ERRORS AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH