Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
us.”
25
The calling for science thus must include a sense of passionate com-
mitment combined with methodical labor and a kind of almost mystical
passivity or openness. The scientific self must be resolutely willful and
patient, yet permeable—androgynous, if you will.
Here, Weber opens a parenthesis that is one of the most celebrated in
his entire work. What exactly, he asks, does scientific progress provide
to the individual, society, and civilization? Weber's answer amounts to
the stark conclusion that not only does science alone produce neither
enlightenment nor meaning but furthermore, under the conditions of
modernity, science stands in a fraught, perhaps mortal, tension with both
enlightenment and meaning.
For Weber, scientific work forms part of a larger “process of intellec-
tualization” that has been developing for thousands of years. What does
this mean?
Does it mean that we, today, for instance, have a greater knowledge of life
under which we exist than an American Indian or a Hottentot? Hardly. Unless
he is a physicist, one who rides on the streetcar has no idea how the car
happened to get into motion. And he does not need to know. [He can depend
on others.] The savage knows incomparably more about his tools. The savage
knows what he does in order to get his daily food and which institutions serve
him in this pursuit. The increasing intellectualization and rationalization do
not
,
therefore, indicate an increased and general knowledge of the conditions under
which one lives. It means something else, namely, the knowledge or belief that
if one but wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally
there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that
one can in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world
is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to
master or implore the spirits . . . technical means and calculations perform the
service.
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Now, regarding these processes of disenchantment, which have con-
tinued to exist in Occidental culture for millennia, Weber asks, “Do they
have any meanings that go beyond the purely practical and technical”
including the meaning of human life as it is lived.
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His answer is a
resounding “no.” Strictly speaking, within the constraints of the ques-
tion of the inward calling for science, there can be no answer because it
is not a question that science can answer scientifically. If we recall that
when Weber refers to Wissenschaft, he means all forms of disciplined
knowledge, we are unlikely to be let off the hook by bringing William
Shakespeare to the physicians or ethics committees to the molecular
