ECLIPSE OF REASON
J2
the same time this research
is strictly
supervised and
made
conform to established patterns. Here we see how competitive and authoritative control work hand in hand. Such to
co-operation is sometimes useful for a limited purposefor instance, in the production of the best baby foods, super-
and propaganda methods; but one could hardly
explosives,
contributes to the progress of real thought. no clear-cut distinction between liberalism and
claim that
There
is
it
authoritarianism in
modern
science.
In actual
fact, liberal-
ism and authoritarianism tend to interact in a way that helps to vest an ever more rigid rational control in the institutions of an irrational world. protest against being accused of dogmatism, scientific absolutism, like the 'obscurantism' it assails, must its
Despite
back on self-evident principles. The sole difference is neo-Thomism is aware of such presuppositions, while positivism is completely naive about them. What matters fall
that
is
much
not so
that a theory
may
rest
on
self-evident prin-
ciplesone of the most intricate of logical problems as that neo-positivism practices the very thing for which it attacks its adversaries. As long as it maintains this attack, it must which
is
own
ultimate principles, the most important of that of the identity of truth and science. It must
justify its
make
clear
This
is
recognizes certain procedures as scientific. the philosophical issue that will decide whether confidence in scientific method/ Hook's solution of the
why
it
current menacing situation,
is
a blind belief or a rational
principle.
The three articles in question do not go into this problem. are some indications of how the positivists would solve it. Mr. Hook points to one difference between scienBut there