Page 18 - Studio International - February 1971

and the scientific. quotes from Marx : 'It is not the have reduced significance. This will focus
Comparable doubts about the completeness consciousness of men that determines their attention upon the deep structure of each
of scientific 'truth' may be found in very existence, but, on the contrary, their social subject, rather than upon its surface structure.'11
different intellectual traditions : for instance, existence which determines their consciousness'; To put the matter very simply a lot will
the phenomenological school of philosophy, and concludes that, because 'ideology is an depend on the general principles underlying an
especially Merleau-Ponty, who wrote: inescapable level of discourse' we must integrated curriculum. Such principleS are
`Intellectualism and empiricism do not give `paradoxically ... relax the authority of science bound to be well towards the 'soft', value-laden
us an account of human experience of the world; and see it in an ideological perspective in order end of my illustration. q
they tell what God might think of it.'4 to get nearer to the will-o-the-wisp of JONATHAN BENTHALL
`[Objective thought] has for its constant objectivity.'
function the reducing of all phenomena which The implications of such arguments are wide.
attest the union of the subject and the world, I shall confine myself to two conclusions of The BSSRS (70 Gt Russell St, London WCI) will
hold the first of a series of monthly evening meetings
and the substituting for them of the clear idea special relevance to the arts. at the ICA on Monday 15 February at 8 pm, when
of the object as "in itself" and the subject as I. Nearly all recourse to science, nature, life, Professor Lakatos and Dr J. Ravetz will speak on
pure consciousness.'5 etc. in arguments about art and culture is `Science and Anti-Science'.
1 ICA Eventsheet, August 197o, from lecture
`The existence of other people makes a heavily laden with values and ideology. `Rhythmic Organization of Cells and Embryos'.
difficulty and a scandal for objective thought.' 6 Illustrations from my own column in Studio 2 T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Or we may turn to the more visceral insights could of course be found. I shall give but one (Chicago, 1962), chapter 13.
3 C. P. Snow, 'The case of Leavis and the serious
of poets like Blake, Lawrence and Yeats. example, however : from a recent article by case', TLS, 9 July 1971.
Some scientists cling to their belief in Patrick Heron, where he uses 'objective' 4 M. Merleau-Ponty, La Phénoménologie de la
objective truth like a priesthood only dimly quasi-scientific terms to support his use of small Perception (Paris 1945), translated, p. 296.
5 Ibid., p. 370.
aware that its dogmas are losing credibility. Not Chinese water-colour brushes to paint sixty 6 Ibid., p. 4o1.
surprisingly, we see around us extreme and square feet of a single colour: 'One merely 7 See, for a fuller argument, my article 'Language,
indiscriminate reactions by many knows that surfaces worked in this way can—in Ecology and Art: New Structures for Education',
The Structurist (University of Saskatchewan), no. 10,
non-scientists against reason and method. At fact they must—register a different nuance of 1971.
the same time, there is an intense interest in the spatial evocation and movement in every single 8 One reason why he has been able to write such a
source and definition of 'creativity'. The square millimetre'. Here is an apology for uniquely devastating, and at the same time
Snovian 'two cultures' notion, once plausible painterliness as a craft and as a life-style." constructive, critique of Marshall McLuhan as his
just published McLuhan (Fontana Modern Masters
enough as a crude description of a cultural 2. In art and design education, as in series, 6s).
situation, is now (unless I am mistaken) education as a whole, there is much debate 9 To appear in Social Implications of Modern Biology,
yielding to a unitaIy view of creativity, culture about integrated courses. In an important paper proceedings of BSSRS conference, ed. Watson Fuller
(Routledge, in press).
and communication—of which view Goodwin's Professor Bernstein has written: 10 Patrick Heron, 'Two Cultures' [British and
statement quoted above is representative. If `In order to accomplish any form of American art], Studio International, Dec. 1970, p.
there is one term generally applicable to the integration (aS distinct from different subjects 247. This article, though very readable, occasionally
reminded me of Lord Stokes defending the
results of artistic creation, linguistic description, focusing upon a common problem, which gives workmanship of British motor exports, thus emitting
critical interpretation and scientific hypothesis, rise to what could be called a focused a smokescreen when many are criticizing the entire
this is probably a term borrowed from curriculum) there must be some relational idea, industry in both countries on different and broader
grounds.
mathematics: 'model'—i.e., a structure of a supra-content concept, which focuses upon 11 Basil Bernstein, 'On the Classification and
dynamic relations which represents or simulates general principles at a high level of abstraction Framing of Educational Knowledge', to appear in
Knowledge and Control, ed. M. Young (Collier-
experience.7 ...The particulars of each subject are likely to MacMillan, in press).
what we take to be 'real' processes from our
The sociology of knowledge is sure to be an
eventful area of debate over the next few years.
The disciplines drawn on will be diverse.
Among the most interesting participants so far,
Mary Douglas is a professor of social
anthropology and Basil Bernstein of educational
sociology; another, Jonathan Miller, eludes
vocational classification.8 However, the most
challenging approach I have yet come across in
the context of 'science and society' was a paper
by Robert M. Young delivered at the BSSRS's
London conference last November on 'Social
Implications of Modern Biology'.9
Rather than try to summarize Young's rich
and cogent paper, 'Evolutionary Biology and
Ideology: Then and Now', I have distilled from
it a diagram showing how the different
branches of science fit into a continuum,
between the 'objectivity' of mathematics at one
extreme (though Dr Young argues that 'all facts
are for or against some theory') and at the other
extreme the permeation by ideology of all
thinking about man and society, even when it
takes on a guise of disinterested descriptive
science. I hope the diagram does not over-
simplify Young's case too grossly. Young
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