the economic factor in determination of specific consequences. As will be seen by consulting the index, s.v. “Economic Forces and Politics,” the immense influence exercised by economic aspects of modern life receives attention. But as far as concerned political relations between national units, the question then had to do mainly with special issues such as tariffs, most favored treatment, retaliation, etc. The view that economics is the sole condition affecting the entire range of political organization and that present day industry imperatively demands a certain single type of social organization has been a theoretical issue because of the influence of the writings of Marx.2 But, in spite of the revolution in Soviet Russia, it was hardly an immediate practical issue of international politics. Now it is definitely becoming such an issue, and present signs point to its being a predominant issue in determining the future of international political relationships.
The position that economics is the sole conditioning factor of political organization, together with the position that all phases and aspects of social life, science, art, education and all the agencies of public communication included, are determined by the type of economy that prevails is identical with that type of life to which the name “totalitarian” justly applies. Given the view that there is but one form of economic organization that properly fulfills social conditions, and that one country of all the peoples of the earth has attained that state in an adequate degree, there is in existence an outstanding and overshadowing practical problem.
For Soviet Russia has now arrived at a state of power and influence in which an intrinsically totalitarian philosophy has passed from the realm of theory into that of the practical political relations of the national states of the globe. The problem of adjusting the relations of states sufficiently democratic to put a considerable measure of trust in free inquiry and open discussion, as a fundamental method in peaceable negotiation of social conflicts, with the point of view that there is but one Truth, fixed and absolute and hence not open to inquiry and public discussion, is now a vital one. Although my own belief as to where the line of social progress is to be drawn between the two positions is firmly in accord with that of the great majority of members of democratic states, I am not here concerned with considerations of right and wrong, of truth or falsity. I cannot refrain, however, from pointing out how the world situation bears out the hypothesis that the matter of the scope of range and of the seriousness of the factual consequences of associated human transactions is the determining factor in affecting social behavior with political properties too evident to be ignored. The problem of discovering and implementing politically areas of common interest is henceforth imperative.
There is one other point that demands attention. The text points out in a number of places, firstly, that noting of consequences is an indispensable condition over and above their mere occurrence and, secondly, that this noting (on anything like an adequate scale) depends upon the state of knowledge at the time, especially upon the degree to which the kind of method called scientific is applied to social affairs. Some of us have been insisting for some time that science bears exactly the same relation to the progress of culture as do the affairs acknowledged to be technological (like the state of invention in the case, say, of tools and machinery, or the progress reached in the arts, say, the medical). We have also held that a considerable part of the remediable evils of present life are due to the state of imbalance of scientific method with respect to its application to physical facts on one side and to specifically human facts on the other side; and that the most direct and effective way out of these evils is steady and systematic effort to develop that effective intelligence named scientific method in the case of human transactions.
Our theorizing on this point cannot be said to have had much effect. The relative importance of the consequences of events which are of the nature of theorizing, and of events which are so overt as to force themselves upon general attention is well exhibited in what has followed upon the fission of the atom. Its consequences are so impressive that there is not only a clamor, approaching a Babel, about the utility and disutility of physical sciences, but some aspects of the control of science in the interest of social well-being have entered the arena of politics,—of governmental discussion and action. In evidence, it is enough to point to the controversy going on in the Congress of the United Nations as these pages are written as to civilian and military participation in control, and in the United States as to the best method in general of managing the needed control.3
Aspects of the moral problem of the status of physical science have been with us for a long time. But the consequences of the physical sciences, though immeasurably important to industry and through industry in society generally, failed to obtain the kind of observation that would bring the conduct and state of science into the specifically political field. The use of these sciences to increase the destructiveness of war was brought to such a sensationally obvious focus with the splitting of the atom that the political issue is now with us, whether or no.
There are those who not only insist upon taking an exclusively moralistic view of science but who also insist upon doing so in an extremely one-sided way.4 They put the blame for the present evils on physical science as if it were a causal entity per se, and not a human product which does what prevailing human institutions exact of it. They then use the evils that are apparent as a ground for the subjection of science to what they take to be moral ideals and standards, in disregard of the fact, hortatory preaching aside, there is no method of accomplishing this subordination save setting up some institution equipped with absolute authority—the sure way to restore the kind of conflict that once marked the attempt of the Church to control scientific inquiry. The net outcome of their position, were it adopted, would not be the subordination of science to ideal moral aims, in disregard of political or public interests, but the production of political despotism with all the moral evils which attend that mode of social organization.
Science, being a human construction, is as much subject to human use as any other technological development. But, unfortunately, “use” includes misuse and abuse. Holding science to be an entity by itself, as is done in most of the current distinctions between science as “pure” and “applied,” and then blaming it for social evils, like those of economic maladjustment and destruction in war, with a view to subordinating it to moral ideals, is of no positive benefit. On the contrary, it distracts us from using our knowledge and our most competent methods of observation in the performance of the work they are able to do. This work is the promotion of effective foresight of the consequence of social policies and institutional arrangements.
John Dewey
Hubbards, Nova Scotia
July 22, 1946
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Search for the Public
If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion. Many persons seem to suppose that facts carry their meaning along with themselves on their face. Accumulate enough of them, and their interpretation stares out at you. The development of physical science is thought to confirm the idea. But the power of physical facts to coerce belief does not reside in the bare phenomena. It proceeds from method, from the technique of research and calculation. No one is ever forced by just the collection of facts to accept a particular theory of their meaning, so long as one retains intact some other doctrine by which he can marshal them. Only when the facts are allowed free play for the suggestion of new points of view is any significant conversion of conviction as to meaning possible. Take away from physical science its laboratory apparatus and its mathematical technique, and the human imagination might run wild in its theories of interpretation even if we suppose the brute facts to remain the same.
In any event, social philosophy exhibits an immense gap between facts and doctrines. Compare, for example, the facts of politics with the theories which are extant regarding the nature of the state. If inquirers confine themselves to observed phenomena, the behavior of kings, presidents,
