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PARTISAN REVIEW
in relation to philosophy has been not so much a
conflict between
science and metaphysics (or religion) as a
battle against
science.
Nor is
it
true that science cannot answer questions about the causes
and reasons of things. It cannot answer questions about
ultimate
causes and
ultimate
reasons, not because such questions are too
dif–
ficult to answer or because they require a special organ of vision,
but because if an answer to a causal question is intelligible, we can
always ask another causal question about it: and if we can give an
intelligible reason for the existence of some state of affairs, we can
always ask the reason for it. There is no guarantee at any point that
we can answer these questions; nor is it certain that we cannot. To
speak paradoxically, there are no ultimate questions: only penulti–
mate ones. Those who are dissatisfied with this, despite what they
say, really want answers which will explain why things must logically
and necessarily be what they are and not something else. They are
seeking more than understanding. They are seeking justification and
consolation for the order of things. They are seeking what knowl–
edge and science can never give.
Not every conception of philosophical or metaphysical knowl–
edge claims to establish the existence of God, the soul, the angelic
hosts, or a philosophical physics superior to an experimental physics
in certainty, universaIity and reliability. But when it does, the burden
of proof that there exist other kinds of knowledge besides scientific
knowledge rests upon those making the assertion. In justice,
it
should
be said that even some naturalistic philosophers have developed posi–
tions according to which metaphysics yields a knowledge forever be–
yond the jurisdiction of scientific inquiry. For example, the theory
of relativity has been characterized by one naturalist philosopher as
"scientifically true but ontologically false."
This
is almost like saying
-not quite--that someone is scientifically dead but ontologically
alive.
There are, of course, certain conceptions of philosophical knowl–
edge which are not in sharp conflict with the view of knowledge de–
fended here. It is sometimes claimed that philosophical knowledge
is
as empirical as scientific knowledge but is expressed in broad and
vague generalizations that serve as heuristic principles for the special
sciences. This
is
apparently true of some philosophic systems in the
