Again, the psychological analysis of knowledge has brought out the
fact of its constant dependence upon practical interests. It is the
need to perform or attain something, which is the motive that leads
to the understanding of things; and the understanding of things with
which alone we are satisfied is commonly that which helps us so to
describe our experience as to be able to control some practical
result. 'Knowledge is power'; and not only so, but in its early stages
and in most of its later developments, knowledge is _for_ power: it is
for purposes of his own that man becomes the 'interpreter of nature.'
It is to men of science rather than to philosophers that we owe the
'descriptive theory' of scientific concepts which, within the last
few years, has gone far to revolutionise the prevailing attitude of
philosophy to science. Concepts, such as 'mass,' 'energy,' and the
like, are no longer held to express realities the denial of which
would be treason to science; they are simply descriptive notions whose
truth consists in their utility: that is to say, in their ability to
comprehend all the relevant facts in a simple description. And, in the
same way, scientific principles are of the nature of postulates, whose
justification is no necessary law of thought, but must rather be
sought in the results of scientific investigation.
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