SCIENTIST: If we ascertain in such a manner that mathematical projection and experiment belong to physics, then we make no historiological statement, but rather pick out components that belong to the essence of physics. We think methodologically.
SCHOLAR: As far as I have been instructed, however, modern natural science places its pride precisely in that, by means of its mathematical- experimental conduct, it possesses a decisive superiority over all historically preceding investigations of nature—over the ancient as well as, above all, over the medieval—a superiority which is plainly enough confirmed in the enormous successes of technology in particular
SCIENTIST: By this you want to say that in mathematical projection and in experiment the modern—and that means after all the historical— character of physics comes to light. [42]
SCHOLAR: Precisely that.
SCIENTIST: It is far from my intention to deny the temporally conditioned aspect of modern natural science [Naturwissenschaft], which, after all, it shares in common with all human creations. But with this nothing is decided about the inner essence of cognition in physics. When the natural scientist is immersed in his work—and it is precisely this stance that must be held in view in the methodological analysis of physics—he is entirely dedicated to the object. Everything that is temporally conditioned and personal drops away from the investigating physicist. In this stance there is nothing historiological to be found. Nature alone, which is after all sharply distinguished from history, speaks to the mathematically thinking and experimenting scientist. In the humanities [Geisteswissenschaften] the matter is different. Here, for example, in the interpretation of poems and paintings, everything depends on the personal experiential capacity of the researcher being brought into play. Here the subjectivity of the researcher is necessarily in play; and it is for this reason that the humanities also never attain to strictly objective, that is, to universally valid knowledge.
SCHOLAR: What the humanities leave behind in this respect they make up for with a harvest that issues forth from them in the form of spiritual edification and intellectual enrichment.
SCIENTIST: These treasures, however, are very often buried under mountains of scholarship and are at times rather meager and hardly distinguishable from what anyone moderately capable of experiencing can see in an artwork without the help of research. Be that as it may, I think that the natural sciences and the humanities can be accurately distinguished from one another according to the viewpoints we have touched on here—namely, those of objectivity and nearness-to-life.