Malicious Philosophies of Science
Ernest Nagel
!ERE IS NO SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
for the widely held view
that changes in the content and standards of theoretical inquiry
are uniquely determined by changes in the economic and political
structure of society. To be sure, scientific inquiries are often ini·
tiated and subsidized by those concerned with problems of com·
merce and technology, and the manner in which scientific dis·
coveries are assimiliated by a society depends on its economic and
political organization. But once a department of inquiry estab–
lishes its traditions of workmanship, so the history of science
seems to indicate, the course of subsequent developments in it is
determined by the materials explored, by the talents and skills
available, and by the logic of theoretical investigation.
In almost every age, however, the attitudes which men assume
toward personal and social issues have been often justified by them
in terms of their understanding of the methods and latest findings
of science. Professional scientists have frequently used their spe·
cialized knowledge to buttress or criticize the institutions of their
day; but publicists, religious leaders, and philosophers have
usually played a more prominent role in this task of evaluating
the general social import of scientific methods and scientific
theories. Such evaluations do not, in most cases, flow from the
specific character of scientific methods or their technical achieve·
ments; they issue from the social and religious commitments of
those who make them, and are symptomatic of the stresses and
strains in the social scene.
In the midst of actual and impending disaster, men are in–
clined to listen to any voice speaking with sufficient authority;
and during periods of social crisis, when rational methods of
inquiry supply no immediate solutions for pressing problems,
spokesmen for institutional and philosophic theologies find a ready
audience for a systematic disparagement of the achievements of
empirical science. Ideas which the advance of knowledge had
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