PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
871
originates in a conception of philosophy as total, systematic knowl–
edge; but at the same time, his doctrine is presented as a result of
modern science, from which
it
does not at .all follow.
In addition to the conceptions patterned on modern science and
total philosophy, there operates in Marxism also a third conception,
reflecting the lofty idea of an absolute truth that fulfills man's will
and aspirations, analogous to the Platonic idea of truth, although
entirely different in character. Marxism conceives of itself as the
true consciousness of the classless man. This quasi-religious postulate
is the source of a new kind of fanaticism which invokes not faith,
but modern science, which charges its opponents with stupidity, malice,
or inability to overcome class prejudice, and contrasts these with its
own universal human truth that is free from class bondage and hence
absolute.
Similar intellectual tendencies, which uncritically hypostatize
a field of investigation that is meaningful within its limits into a total
science, and infuses them with a religious attitude, have been mani–
fested in the domains of racial theory, and psychoanalysis, and in
many other fields.
The false confusion of heterogeneous elements produces here, on
a large scale, results that are so familiar on a small scale in everyday
life-an attitude of never being at a loss for an answer, satisfaction
with mere plausibility, stubbornly uncritical statements and affirma–
tions, inability to explore in a genuine sense, to listen, analyze, test, and
reflect on principles.
The infuriating part of it is that science is invoked to defend
something that runs directly counter to the scientific spirit. For
science leads us to the understanding of the principles, limitations,
and meaning of our knowledge. It teaches us to know, in full con–
sciousness of the methods by which each stage of knowledge is
achieved. It produces a certainty whose relativity, i.e. dependence on
presuppositions and methods of investigation, is its crucial charac–
teristic.
Thus we are today confronted with an ambivalent concept of
science. Genuine science can, as
h~
always been the case, appear
to be occult; it is in the nature of a public secret. It is public because
it is accessible to everyone; it is a secret because it is far from being
truly understood by everyone. All the more brightly shines the gen-
