R.G. Collingwood: Bad Science & Bad Psychology Lead to Bad Ends--or Do They?

R. G. Collingwood, philosopher & prophet

A prescient thought from R. G. Collingwood, writing in 1935, ten years before nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki to begin the nuclear age. As someone who grew up with the (very real) fear that we could all end-up being flash-fried in a nuclear holocaust and who can now add (alas, not replace) that fear with the thought of an Instant Pot slow-cook (global warming) to threaten our collective future, I take Collingwood's observation and (implicit) admonition very seriously. We'd damned-well better learn to act rationally ("our honour") and put our faith in that path ("our nerve") or we'll end up in the other place.

The situation is . . . that science has taught us how to manipulate nature; it has given us extraordinary technological powers and enabled us to make anything we please in any quantities we like; and at the same time it has not only failed to give us that instructed wisdom which might be based on a true self-knowledge, but it has taken away the unreflective virtue and simple faith in ourselves which we possessed before psychology dispelled our belief in our own rationality. We have therefore, directly through the work of science, lost at once our honour, or habit of acting rationally, and our nerve, or belief that we can so act. Every increase in the power which science gives us over Nature has been attended by a decrease in our ability to use that power wisely; and if the process could go on long enough it is hardly to be doubted that mankind would all but annihilate itself in a series of mutually destructive wars, while the scientists stood by lamenting over the folly of human beings. 

R. G. Collingwood. The Principles of History: And Other Writings in Philosophy of History (pp. 175-176). Kindle Edition.

Same song, second verse. Lyrics by R. G. Collingwood:

What the scientist fails to understand, when he finds himself an impotent spectator of movements he can neither control nor arrest, is that the folly and wickedness which he deplores, the Mephistopheles of this rake's progress, are of his own creating; it is he that raised the devil by inventing psychology and teaching man that he is neither virtuous nor rational but a mere bundle of instincts with nothing in himself either to respect or to obey. But this is understood strongly enough, though confusedly, among mankind at large; and that is why, among the various movements of the modern world, none is more widespread and more characteristic than a certain anti-intellectualism, irrationalism, hatred of thinking, which is simply the revolt of man against the modern scientific tradition. 

R. G. Collingwood. The Principles of History: And Other Writings in Philosophy of History (p. 176). Kindle Edition.

N.B. Collingwood is not in the least "anti-science." His understanding & appreciation of modern science is without question. But what this quote and others like it reveal, is that he wants to put modern science in its place, as it were. Science is different from history; they are complementary ways of knowing. One (science) studies patterns of behavior; the other, the particularities of human action. The criteria that govern the human mind are established by the fields of logic, ethics, and aesthetics. These are "criteriological" (normative) fields of thought established to guide the human actor. Most (lab & social) psychology seeks to study patterns of behavior in the field, as it were, which is, in Collingwood's view (and mine), a step down. Perhaps useful and insightful, but dangerous if taken as establishing norms.

Also, to what extent can ideas about modern science, and psychology, in particular, be shown to influence popular opinion. Collingwood was able to look about his world and see the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany and Mussolini and the Fascists in Italy, but to what extent can we blame the irrationality and anger underlying these movements upon subjects of academic thought? Collingwood is far from alone in making this type of accusation; Pankaj Mishra, Brad Gregory, and Patrick Deneen pop to mind as others who've made similar sorts of allegations about social and political theories influencing popular behavior. Is there a way to demonstrate this? How do we discern any connections that can be accurately said to cause changes in attitudes and behaviors as opposed to mere accusations of such? Such accusations are popular with American conservatives and reactionaries, and they no doubt come from the left as well. How do we sort the gold from the dross in this field of cultural and intellectual history?