Modern Science: Experiment

Abstract

We have travelled a long way from establishing the natural ground for cognition in general, and human cognition in particular, to outlining the human mode of living in which transformation of human cognition into the form of modern science has occurred. In fact we have travelled the full circle, since at this point we could repeat the story, told in the first chapter, about the great compromise of the 17^th century and the rise of modern science. On the other hand, we have achieved more; we have come down from the heights of biological and anthropological overview to the level laying beneath the Bacon-Cartesian philosophy of science, the level of the mode of existence responsible for the story. The two analyses, of the modern mode of living and of the Bacon-Cartesian foundation of science, put together have disclosed the components of the socio-genetic code that have made modern science possible. In making scientific cognition feasible and in “preparing the way” to modern science these components have functioned as driving forces and fundamental prerequisites, even as a Kantian a priori of a sort; only they do not come from transcendental mind but from the changes the modern mode of living has brought forth. Briefly, these components are: (i) commodification and objectness of the object, i.e. its alienation, secularity, and autonomy; (ii) divine fabrication and rationality of nature; (iii) exceptionality, rationality, and emptiness (or transparency) of the human cognitive subject; and (iv) rational, decision-theoretic structure of the basic code.