It is to be understood that the philosopher is not the one to query the procedures and the working hypotheses of the physicist. These arise from grappling with technical problems which have arisen historically in his science; and the philosopher seldom has the technical competence to get the concrete feel of the situation and to realize, to the full, the meaning of what is being proposed.

The following reflections are submitted in awareness of an unfortunate situation which currently finds both psychologists and philosophers concerned with the search after criteria for assessing human conduct, yet with either profession suspicious of the contributions to be expected from the other. The objections frequently entertained against psychologizing philosophers are only matched by those entertained against philosophizing psychologists. Yet, if the worst is said, it still remains true that much psychological work, devoted to problems of mental health, maturity or neurosis, makes contact with moral issues. It also is true that such contact has so far not been fruitful to the point of encouraging psychologists or philosophers to expect new illumination from each other. Unless it be groundless, in principle, to look towards psychological findings as potentially relevant for moral theory or vice versa, it would seem that the only cure for poor relations between the two disciplines are better ones rather than none at all. At any rate, it is on the assumption that more successful relations are possible that I shall now comment upon what appears to be both a most influential and unsuccessful attempt by one psychologist to solve an ethical problem. I shall take my departure from B. F. Skinner's recent Science and Human Behavior,∗ especially from his chapters on value and the survival concept.

During the past half-century the patterns of publication in science have undergone radical change. A vast increment has occurred in the amount of scientific writing. And scientific findings are increasingly being disseminated through “non-traditional” publishing media such as mimeographing and microfilming. These two interrelated trends have had some notable effects upon science. 1. With the rapid increase in the number of publications the problem of maintaining continuity in science has become acute; the traditional scientific social structure seems quite incapable of accomplishing this vital task. 2. An extensive organization is developing which seeks to provide the desired continuity, but its very existence poses dilemmas for the traditional scientific order. 3. Moreover, the changing publication patterns seem to be intensifying the “schisms” between the theoretician and the specialized researcher. 4. They are also challenging the older standards for evaluating scientists. We thus hypothesize that the volume and form of communication is a significant variable inducing modifications in the scientific social system. This theoretical orientation has in part been suggested by Harold Innis (7) who, however, was concerned with broader systems—i.e., civilizations. The following analysis should point up some little-considered problems inherent in the research process.

Following an initial section, in which the relation of materialism to positivism (including operationalism) and agnosticism is discussed, and the latter views criticized, a formal definition of dialectical materialism is given. Materialism is contrasted to idealism and dualism. Dialectics is contrasted to metaphysics. Some additional assumptions, usually included in dialectics, such as the interpenetrating character of the levels of science, and rationalism, are listed. In a section devoted to the relation between matter and spirit, the foundations of materialist ethics are laid by stating the humanist axiom of purpose. In the last section, historical materialism is defined, and some reasons for the occasional entanglement of scientific, philosophical, and political controversies are discussed.

Current discussions of science—both popular and philosophical—often represent the development of science in our civilization as a gradual process of purification from superstitious, religious, and metaphysical elements. This purification is usually presumed to be complete by now—although there may be occasional lapses on the part of individual scientists. That science has changed in character over the centuries is a truism; that it has increasingly loosened ancient ties with magic, religion, and speculative philosophy is an easily substantiated historical thesis. This much admitted, however, an interesting question remains over for discussion: is science by its very nature independent of philosophy? This question has only as much meaning as its two key words (“science” and “philosophy”). According to one common view, “science” would signify some cumulative heritage of methods, principles, and results, while “philosophy” would signify a certain tradition of writings in which the later constantly refer to the earlier, but which otherwise exhibit no discernible uniformity of methods, principles, or results. On this view, then, science is essentially monistic while philosophy is essentially pluralistic.

Robert Boyle's corpuscular philosophy was an important instance in the history of thought of a use of metaphysical principles in formulating new methods for physical science. Since Boyle nowhere completely and explicitly discussed his metaphysic, I shall undertake to reconstruct it and trace its influence on his scientific work.

In thirty years the science of elementary particles has made few achievements compared with its unsuccessful essays. The recent works of Schwinger, Tomonaga, Feynman and Dyson, however, have had some success. We have here a hint that progress is being made on the formal side of the discipline—though even this work is profoundly disturbing in some of its purely mathematical aspects. There could be no better time to review the situation from a physical and philosophical standpoint, even if this proves to be an over-ambitions undertaking.