Condorcet, and Philosophy as the Queen of the Sciences
It is very widely believed among philosophers, and perhaps the sciences too, that since the scientific revolution philosophy births distinct sciences. An underlying (Kuhnian) idea is that once previously immature fields, where dissensus reigned, have been turned into problem-solving mature fields — in which (as George Smith and Bill Harper would say) data is turned into high quality evidence — they become distinctly scientific. Sometimes this narrative is conjoined to the instructive thought that ‘scientist’ is a fairly recent coinage when Whewell reviewed Mary Somervile’s On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Let’s call this story the ‘out-of-philosophy’ origins of the sciences (and cognates thereof). The story is quite visible in, for example, in a then widely discussed opionator by Robert Foderman and Adam Briggle, “When Philosophy Lost Its Way,” who connect it to the division of labor in the modern (post nineteenth century) research university.*
In a forthcoming paper (see here for a draft) at the Aristotelian Society, I suggest that this out-of-philosophy story is a myth. It may hold for some bits of physics (which also draws on astronomy) and some bits of nineteenth century psychology (which also draws — inter alia — on medicine and physiology, etc.). That is, a number of sciences predate philosophy and other sciences have no out-of-philosophy originating moment. In that paper, following the suggestion of (friend of this blog) Eric Brown, the distinguished scholar of ancient philosophy, I remark that the structure of the myth may be invented by Plato in his argument for the philosopher’s ruling role in Kallipolis, by insisting that to be truly scientific one must be philosophical. And so our out-of-philosophy myth involves itself a complex backward projection on a kind of Platonic philosophical prophecy.
It is worth reflecting on the perhaps evolving functions of this myth in professional philosophy and its self-understanding. As regular readers know (see again the draft Aristotelian Society paper), I think in Plato the out-of-philosophy myth is connected to his concerns about the effects of the advanced division of cognitive labor on public life; in contemporary jargon, hyper-specialization allows bullshit to trump expertise in the art of government and makes informed decision-making involving the sciences impossible (or at least very difficult) for university administrators, journalists, judges public policy types, and the democratic public (etc.)
In today’s digression, I won’t tackle that big question (about the function of the myth), but just show how an incredibly well-informed observer (and participant) of the scientific revolution, Condorcet, implicitly rejects the scientific revolution as the site of the split between philosophy and the sciences while, simultaneously, offering an out-of-philosophy narrative. Here’s the passage I have in mind.
The more comprehensive was the plan he formed, the more he felt the necessity of separating the different parts of it, and of fixing with greater precision the limits of each. And from this epoch [onward] the majority of philosophers, and even whole sects, are seen consisting their attention to some only of those parts.—Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas. Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. M. Carey, 1795. “Fifth epoch” [Translator unknown I think; here’s the French (1794) original.]
We find here a version of what Eric Brown and I would claim happens in the Republic, but now projected onto Aristotle. First, the disparate intellectual practices are united in philosophy. This, as it were, synthetic moment, is effected through methodological unification. According to Condorcet — who turns Aristotle into a proto-Hume here — such synthesis is justified in Aristotle in virtue of the fact that the method of enquiry itself is rooted in human nature.
Then, second, philosophy itself is carved up anew and the future sciences gain their fixed borders. This second, analytic moment, is an act of philosophical legislation by the great Stagarite. All subsequent researchers, adhering to the implied authority of Aristotle, focus on some distinct part(s) of it and stay within these borders. The upshot of this, although it is not explicit in Condorcet, is, third, that scientific fields start to seem natural or intuitive because their borders are fixed by long tradition.
It’s worth noting that while Condorcet is, at times, critical of Aristotle — he lacks some of the mathematical techniques and experimental methods to make genuine progress in the sciences —, Condorcet does not criticize Aristotle for the act of legislation by which the sciences are separated. In fact, he takes the implied borders among the sciences as pretty much settled. In his narrative, he doesn’t even suggest that new instruments open up wholly new sciences (a point he might have been tempted to make).
Condorcet is not irrelevant to the out-of-philosophy myth circulating in our age. He is if not the originator (that may be (recall) Newton, perhaps, inspired by Bacon and Seneca), then at least the great popularizer of the idea of limitless progress in all the sciences. For Condorcet this required the development and dissemination of the printing press, which makes general backsliding on existing knowledge impossible, various political freedoms (such that truth is not hindered), and general education (such that many can participate in the sciences). So, crucially in Condorcet’s account social and material conditions need to be right to make sustainable progress in the sciences possible.
But Condorcet also thinks that within the distinct sciences, progress is only possible with the correct method. This point he anticipates explicitly in his commentary on Aristotle’s own scientific, empirical practices: “observation alone was not enough; experiments were necessary: these demanded instruments; and it appears that at that time men had not sufficiently collected facts, had not examined them with the proper minuteness, to feel the want, to conceive the idea of this mode of interrogating nature, and obliging her to answer us.” (Fifth epoque).
The methodological breakthrough he ascribes to Bacon at the start of what we call the scientific revolution:
So let me wrap up. In my view, our contemporary ‘out-of-philosophy’ myth was shaped by Condorcet’s widely read and highly influential narrative. This has already many of the key building blocks of it. But in Condorcet the blocks themselves are made to appear the effect of long durée historical and material processes. And they are part of a commitment — not wholly needed in our ‘out-of-philosophy’ myth — that Condorcet himself ascribes to Aristotle that the sciences all share in the same methods.
*In his original opinionator response to Foderman and Briggle, Scott Soames challenged their narrative. In his subsequent book, Soames suggests that philosophy has always been “the partner of virtually all disciplines.”