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76. Propositions about "Science" [148-149]

thrust toward intensifying the prioritization of the position of proceeding and operating over against the field of the subject matter itself. The decisive question for science as such is not which essential character a being itself has that lies at the basis of the field of the subject matter, but rather whether with this or that procedure a "knowledge." i.e., a result of the research, may be expected. What is key is the view of the arrangement and readiness of "results." Results and, in the end, their immediate appropriateness for use guarantee the accuracy of the research—a scientific accuracy that counts as the truth of a knowing. By appealing to the "results" and their usefulness, science must by itself seek verification of their necessity.(Whether thereby "science" is justified as "cultural value" or as "service to the people" or as "political science" makes essentially no difference. For this reason all justifications and “endowings of meaning of this kind run pell-mell into one another and prove themselves more and more to belong together in spite of [their] apparent enmity.) Only a thoroughly modern (i.e., "liberal") science can be "a national science." Only on the basis of prioritizing the position of procedure over the subject-matter and of the accuracy of judgment over the truth of beings does modern science permit an adjustable shifting to various purposes, depending on need (implementing extreme materialism and technicism by Bolshevism; introducing four-year plan; using political education). In all of this science is everywhere the same and becomes, precisely with these various goal-settings, basically and increasingly more uniform, i.e., more "international."

Because "science" is not a knowing, but rather a mechanism of accuracies of a region of explanation, "sciences" also and at the same time necessarily receive new “impetuses” in their respective goal-settings, with the help of which they can evade every possible threat (namely every essential one) and can continue to do research with renewed "peace of mind." Thus it now took only a few years for "science" to realize that its "liberal" essence and its "ideal of objectivity" are not only compatible with the political-national "orientation" but also indispensable to it. And hence "science" as well as "worldview" must now unanimously agree that the talk of a "crisis" of science was actually only prattle. The "national" "organization" of science moves along the same lines as the "American" [organization of science]. The only question is which side has the greater means and energies for a quicker and full disposal, in order to chase the unchanged—and from itself unchangeable—essence of modern science unto its utmost end-stance. This is a task that can take centuries yet and in the end increasingly excludes every possibility of a "crisis" of science. i.e., [excludes] an essential transformation of knowing and of truth.