Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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Professor E. H. Harbison, Professor D. G. Munro, Director, Woodrow Wilson School Department of History Professors W. J. Baumol, F. F. Stephan, A. W. Sametz, Department of Economics and Social Institutions pari-ties between our professed aspirations and the impact of contemporary behavior. To this extent, at least, the social scientist may double as social reformer. He may well ask, Knowledge for what? This does not imply the substitution -of exhortation for scientific methods in the study of society. Nor does it in any sense constitute a retrogression. In fact the great advances in social science from Plato and Aristotle, Freud and Marx, to the present have stemmed primarily from concern with social reform. Therefore, as Gunnar Myrdal emphasizes, quite apart from drawing any policy conclusions from social research Professor A. Isely, Department of History Professor C. E. Black, Department of History Professor G. A. Graham, Chairman, Department of Politics

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Professor R. A. Lester, Chairman, Depart- ment of Economics and Social Institutions Professor W. Ebenstein, Department of Politics Professors M. Levy, G. Patterson, Deliartment of Economics and Social Institutions great novelist may provide those brilliant intuitive insights into human -behavior which cannot be -obtained by more prosaic scientific measurements. In reverse, from a study of -social science comes awareness that poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians through their own media express concern with the great issues that challenge the student of society. Classic works in all fields of artistic and literary achievement are commonly expressions of concern for perennial dilemmas of living men. The sculptor seeking to express the anguish and striving of The Political Prisoner is not isolated in intent from the scholar tracing the historic origins of the Fifth Amendments protection of the individual against selffincrimination. It is perhaps the unique responsibility of the social scientist to make explicit the contemporary challenge to traditional democratic, humanist values. Today all our institutions, traditions and aspirations are threatened, both by a rival political and ideological system, and by -the imperatives of technological development. The social sciences can equip students to deal with these real issues and real problems. They may provide understanding that the flexibility and freedoms extant in our society today reflect ideas and institutions evolved under totally diiferent physical and psychological circumstances existing a century ago. We are today shaping the kind of society this will be fifty or a hundred years hence. It is a legitimate and proper concern for the social scientist to point out dis' Professors F. W. Notestein, W. E. Moore, G. W. Breese, Department of Economics and Social Institutions

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Professors W. F. Craven, R. L. Powell, Department of History Professors P. J. Strayer, O. Morgenstern, De- partment af Economics and Social Instit Professor G. A. Craig, Department of History Professor S. E. Howard, Department of Economics and Social Institutions 5, . f e if AM. . ' ff 7 sf'-N: 1-5 Qi' -fs- Professor L. V. Chandler, Department of Economics and Social Institutions or forming any ideas about what is desirable or un' desira-ble, we employ and We need value premises in making scientihc observations of facts and in analyzing their casual interrelation. Chaos does not organize itself utions by evading them. 24 into any cosmos. We need viewpoints and they presume valuations. A 'disinterested social science' is, from this viewpoint, pure nonsense. lt never existed, and it will never exist. We can strive to make our thinking rational in spite of this, but only by facing the valuations, not From the study of society the student may properly obtain convictions and, conceivably, even aspirations to participate in social decisions. In Whitehead's phrase, knowledge does not keep any better than ish, and in a democratic society positive commitment and action are legitimate ends for the educated man.