Page:Reichenbach - Experience and Prediction.djvu/29

§ 1. THE THREE TASKS 15 which had been previously neglected. In its further development, however, the tendency has largely trespassed beyond its proper boundaries by highly exaggerating the part occupied by decisions in knowledge. The relations between different decisions were overlooked, and the task of reducing arbitrariness to a minimum by showing the logical interconnections between the arbitrary decisions was forgotten. The concept of entailed decisions, therefore, may be regarded as a dam erected against extreme conventionalism; it allows us to separate the arbitrary part of the system of knowledge from its substantial content, to distinguish the subjective and the objective part of science. The relations between decisions do not depend on our choice but,are prescribed by the rules of logic, or by the laws of nature.

It even turns out that the exposition of entailed decisions settles many quarrels about the choice of decisions. Certain basic decisions enjoy an. almost universal assent; and, if we succeed in showing that one of the contended decisions is entailed by such a basic decision, the acceptance of the first decision will be secured. Basic decisions of such a kind are, for instance, the principle that things of the same kind shall receive the same names, or the principle that science is to furnish methods for foreseeing the future as well as possible (a demand which will be accepted even if science is also charged with other tasks). I will not say that these basic decisions must be assumed and retained in every development of science; what I want to say is only that these decisions are actually maintained by most people and that many quarrels about decisions are caused only by not seeing the implication which leads from the basic decisions to the decision in question.

The objective part of knowledge, however, may be freed from volitional elements by the method of reduction trans-