Science and Practical Affairs
WHITE, MORTON
Science and Practical Affairs The Open Mind. By J. Robert Oppenheimer. Simon & Schuster. 146 pp. $2.75. Revieived by Morton White Chairman, Philosophy Department, Harvard U.; author, "Social...
...That is not all,' the woman said...
...But the sin Oppenheimer speaks of is not original sin...
...I know,' she said, 'I know...
...Oppenheimer has brought together eight serious essays, four of which state his \ lews on the tortured problem of controlling atomic weapons, and four of which reveal him as a deep, sensitive, acute commentator on the relation between science and the culture of our time...
...Those who have seen Hiroshima even recently will know what he means...
...On the contrary, Jefferson is the thinker whom he quotes with most sympathy on the relation between science and politics...
...but also because yielding to the temptation would be extremely unfair to the author of this book...
...Eppur si muove...
...my husband was eaten here a year ago by this same tiger.' Again Confucius attempted to console her and again he left only to hear renewed weeping...
...And his answers are: the rejection of authority and dogma, the need for an open mind...
...He learned that her son had just been eaten by a tiger: and he attempted to console her, to make clear how unavailing tears would be, to restore her composure...
...We must remember that this is not a simple-minded materialist speaking to us from a brass lau oratory in the nineteenth century...
...He presents these essays without any advocating preface, without any reference to his ordeal, without apology...
...We are also reminded, more obliquely, of a premonitory story which Oppenheimer told in another connection in 1947: "One day in a clearing in the forest, Confucius came upon a woman in deep mourning, wracked by sorrow...
...nor does he think that Hiroshima forces us to abandon the categories of rationality in making our moral decisions...
...We are therefore reminded of the dignified way in which he replied to reporters after the AEC's decision was rendered: by referring them to the simple, terse statement of the physicist Smyth's dissent from the majority verdict...
...He left, but had barely re-entered the forest when the renewed sounds of weeping recalled him...
...Why don't you leave it?' The woman wrung her hands...
...you see...
...What are the lessons that the spirit of science teaches us for our practical affairs...
...In contrast to those who would revive an older Geneva spirit named Calvin, and in spite of Oppenheimer's personal suffering and the physicist's guilt about his association with the most devastating death-dealer of all time, Oppenheimer does not contritely abandon the tradition of the Enlightenment...
...Oppenheimer asks...
...the government is so excellent.'" It is encouraging to know that Robert Oppenheimer has not left the neighborhood...
...In it, Dr...
...The year before that my father too was eaten by a tiger.' Confueius thought for a moment, and then said: 'This would not seem to be a very salutary neighborhood...
...What he says is in refreshing, challenging contrast to much of the cant we hear today about the defects of rationality as a way of dealing with our moral, social and political problems...
...Yet it is well to resist this temptation here, not only because of the absurdity of trying to reargue the case in a few paragraphs after so many thousand pages have been devoted to it...
...You see...
...This is a brilliant, cultivated, delicately constructed man--as his memorable Columbia Bicentennial Address "Prospects in the Arts and Sciences" shows--who symbolizes in a complex way the triumph and temporary tragedy of the scientific spirit in the twentieth century...
...Oppenheimer's view is made more poignant and more commanding by the fact that he admits that "In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin: and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose...
...author, "Social Thought in America" A reviewer like the present one, who believes that the Oppenheimer case produced one of the great injustices of our time, might be tempted to seize this book as an occasion for defending him once again, for pointing out the large number of instances in which Oppenheimer vigorously attacked the policy of the Soviet Union, and for emphasizing the extent to which his career as a scientific statesman brought him into direct conflict with the Russians on the international politics of the bomb...
...And Jefferson is (unfashionably) praised for being confident that an increased understanding of the world will lead to progress, for being convinced that barbarism cannot stand up against inquiry and understanding and enlightenment, for believing that as men know more they will act more wisely and live better, for realizing that science, in the long run, cannot flourish in an undemocratic society...
...In this volume, he addresses his profound and moving voice to one of the perplexing philosophical problems of our time: the relation between science and society...
...It will lake very rational thought and more than the Geneva Spirit to avoid future Hiroshimas...
...We have lived to see Soviet power and a mushroom cloud surround this philosophy, but even if it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that understanding and rationality will escape with these great goods, we may still say that they have more chance of producing them than any alternative we know of...
...Is that not all?' 'Oh, no,' she said...
Vol. 39 • January 1956 • No. 5
