This may very well be a fair appraisal of the status of the news we are talking about here — providing the notions of “organism” and “sign” be allowed sufficiently broad interpretation. For the organism we speak of here is not only the physiological mechanism of the body but the encultured creature, the economic creature, and so on. The sign we speak of here is not merely the environmental element; it is the sentence, the symbolic assertion made by one man and understood by another.
The scientist — I use the word in the broadest possible sense to include philosophers and artists as well as positive scientists — has abstracted from his own predicament in order to achieve objectivity.* His objectivity is indeed nothing else than his removal from his own concrete situation. No sentence can be received by him as a piece of news, therefore, because he does not stand in the way of hearing news.
(3) The Scale of Significance
The scale of significance by which the scientist evaluates the sentences in the bottles may be said to range from the particular to the general. The movement of science is toward unity through abstraction, toward formulae and principles which embrace an ever greater number of particular instances. Thus the sentence “Hydrogen and oxygen combine in the ratio of two to one to form water” is a general statement covering a large number of particular cases. But Mendeleev’s law of periodicity covers not merely water but all other cases of chemical combination. A theory of gravitation and a theory of radiation are conceived at very high levels of abstraction. But a unified field theory which unites the two occurs at an even higher level.
The scale of significance by which the castaway evaluates news is its relevance for his own predicament. The significance of a piece of knowledge is abstracted altogether from the concrete circumstances which attended the discovery of the knowledge, its verification, its hearing by others. The relationship of Mendeleev’s law of periodicity to Lavoisier’s discovery of the composition of water is a relation sub specie aeternitatis. Its significance in no way depends upon Lavoisier’s or Mendeleev’s circumstance in life or on the circumstance of him who hears it.
But in judging the significance of a piece of news, everything depends on the situation of the hearer. The question is not merely, What is the nature of the news? but, Who is the hearer? If a man has lost his way in a cave and hears the cry “Come! This way out!” the communication qualifies as news of high significance. But if another man has for reasons of his own come to the cave to spend the rest of his life, the announcement will be of no significance. To a man dying of thirst the news of diamonds over the next dune is of no significance. But the news of water is.
The abstraction of the scientist from the affairs of life may be so great that he even ignores news of the highest relevance for his own predicament. When a friend approached Archimedes and announced, “Archimedes, the soldiers of Marcellus are coming to kill you,” Archimedes remained indifferent. He attributed no significance to a contingent piece of news in comparison with the significance of his geometrical deductions. In so doing it may be that he acted as an admirable martyr for science or it may be that he acted foolishly. All that we are concerned here to notice are the traits of objectivity.
The castaway, on the other hand, can only take account of knowledge sub specie aeternitatis if it is significant also as news. If his island stands to win international honor providing one of its scientists discovers the secret of atomic energy, or if indeed such a discovery means survival, then the announcement of his scientist friend
E =MC2!
is news of the highest significance.
In summary, the scale of significance by which one judges sentences expressing knowledge sub specie aeternitatis is the scientific scale of particular-general. The scale of significance by which a castaway evaluates the news in the bottle is the degree of relevance for his own predicament.
(4) Canons of Acceptance
The operation of acceptance of a piece of knowledge sub specie aeternitatis is synonymous with the procedure of verification.
We need not review the verification procedures of formal logic or positive science. The truth of analytic sentences is demonstrated by a disclosure of the deductive process by which they are inferred. The truth or probability of synthetic sentences is demonstrated by a physical operation repeatable by others.
What about the verification procedures of our other “scientific” sentences, those of psychoanalysts, artists, philosophers, et al.? For example, a neurotic physicist is able to verify the suggestion of his analyst that his dream symbol means such and such, and to do so without resorting to a physical operation. These and other such sentences, I suggest, are verifiable not experimentally but experientially by the hearer on the basis of his own experience or reflection. These sentences
Your dream symbol, house and balcony, represents a woman.
The whole is greater than the part.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep
can only be verified (or rejected) by the immediate assent or assent after reflection of him who hears, on the basis of his own experience.
The criteria of acceptance of a news sentence are not the same as those of a knowledge sentence. This is not a pejorative judgment. To say this is not to say that news is of a lower cognitive order than knowledge — such a judgment presupposes the superiority of the scientific posture. It is only to say that once a piece of news is subject to the verification procedures of a piece of knowledge, it simply ceases to be news.
If I am thirsty and you appear on the next sand dune and shout, “Come with me! I know where water is!” it is not open to me to apply any of the verification procedures mentioned above, experimental operations, deduction, or interior recognition and assent to the truth of your statement. A piece of news is neither deducible, repeatable, or otherwise confirmable at the point of hearing.
You may deny this, saying that the thirsty man is not really different from the scientist: The only way to verify a report in either case is to go and see for yourself. Very true! But what we are concerned with is not the act, going and seeing for yourself, as a verification procedure, but how one decides to heed the initial “Come!” The scientist does not need to heed the “Come!” For he does not have to come. He is in no predicament whatever and any knowledge that he might wish to arrive at can be arrived at anywhere and at any time and by anyone. Whatever he wants to find out can be found out in his laboratory, on his field trip, in his studio, on his grass mat.
But the castaway must act by a canon of acceptance which is usable prior to the procedure of verification. He is obliged to contrive some standard. Otherwise he is easy prey for any clever scoundrel who knows how to take advantage of his predicament to lead him into a den of thieves. What is this standard? What elements does it comprise?
Clearly there are at least two elements. One is the relevance of the news to my predicament. If the stranger in the desert approaches me and announces, “I know what your need is. It is diamonds. Come with me. I know where they are”—I reject him on two counts. One, because it is not diamonds I need; two, because, if he is such a fool or knave as to believe it is diamonds I want, he is probably lying anyway. But if he announces instead, “Come! I know your need. I will take you to water”—then this very announcement is an earnest of his reliability. Yet he might still be a knave or a fool.