While I have been trained as a social scientist, and deploy the normal range of analytical strategies: historiography; hermeneutics; textual exegesis, sociological, anthropological and linguistic methodologies - I view the philosophical analysis of the methodology of science as crucially important. The methodology of science is revealed through the analysis of the epistemology of scientific theories. The strategies of inquiry and the inferences drawn from data define the epistemology - the philosophical structure - at the foundation of science. Epistemology is the logical structure - and the philosophical architecture - of the interpretations of science. This is a project that was begun by Socrates and Plato, both of whom were deeply engaged in the alchemical tradition. Although, we are the inheritors of a broad array of theories for methodology from a myriad of historical and philosophical analyses of science, a new consensus is emerging from science, itself.

While many historians and philosophers have been impressed with the theories of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, most scientists that I have met prefer the theory of Paul Feyerabend, which rejects a dogmatic approach to the methodology of science. In recent historical analyses, philosophers of science argue for the objectivity of scientific absolutism, while rejecting the empiricist tradition of a single methodology of scientific inquiry. This trend is characterized by a tendency toward pragmatism, in contrast to either realism or relativism. Perhaps, the most influential philosopher of the current philosophical trends in the historiography of science is the late W. V. Quine, who presented the case for a naturalized epistemology which views scientific data as products of the psychology of the scientists, themselves. Quine places his maximum emphasis on the sensory receptors and the elaborate perception systems of science. These ideas are becoming received opinion within the scientific community, which principally concerns itself with research techniques rather than the methodologies underlying the theoretical structures of science.

The philosophy of Jacques Derrida, while still regarded as controversial in some intellectual circles, has broadened our understanding of the limits of language in the communication of ideas and their meanings. Therefore, from a growing variety of intellectual perspectives, the best evidence suggests that no single methodology is inherently superior, in every conceivable scientific situation. It is clear that, sometimes, discoveries in science will falsify previous theories, and sometimes, major discoveries will displace a pre-existing paradigm. While the quiet accumulation of facts through normal scientific routines may, at times, lead to significant revisions in our understanding of the physical properties of nature. Speaking in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, Stephen Jay Gould, unquestionably the most significant Darwinian scientist alive today, rejected the theory of a universal scientific methodology.

From the perspective of empiricism, Popper's falsification dynamic seems to be supreme, while from the viewpoints of the post-empiricists, Kuhnian paradigm displacement appears to explain a much broader spectrum of scientific development. The trend away from empiricism is being driven by the data and theories of science, especially quantum mechanics, which adopts a new epistemology of logic. Recently, scientists have shifted the scene of inquiry into quantum phenomena in the brain that influence consciousness, and some have begun to investigate the mind from the perspective of Bose-Einstein condensates. These developments demand a new epistemology of science and a new methodology of scientific inquiry.

The importance of methodology in an approach to the problem of the origins of science is the recognition of the need for a much broader understanding of scientific endeavour than is presently recognized, for we need a new epistemology of science that incorporates the revelations of quantum mechanics and appreciates the impact of shamanism on alchemy. The chemical and psychological techniques revealed through the scientific analysis of the shamanistic evidence expose the ontology - the philosophical definitions - underlying the contemporary theories of the history of science as inadequate.

The preliminary circumstance of every phase of evolution in science is the falsification, deconstruction and displacement of erroneous philosophical principles, preconceptions and presuppositions. Today, Cartesian dualism and Jungian symbolism are two obstacles severely limiting the expansion of science. Cartesian dualism is the primary epicentre of error, and it is inhibiting and delaying the progress of science, for the Cartesian presupposition would prohibit an analysis of the shamanistic influences on the intellectual trends that led to modern science. Today, the Cartesian position is epistemologically unacceptable due to the evidence of scientific practices described in the alchemical corpus, shamanistic techniques for altered states of consciousness through chemistry. The relevance of the shamanistic evidence expands the range of psychological data and multiplies the complexities of the sensory apparatuses arrayed by science revealing an epistemology that is fundamentally distinct from any previous interpretation of the foundation of the historical trend that we understand as science.

The deconstruction of the Cartesian obstacle will reveal a broad spectrum of natural phenomena that will be opened to objective scientific investigation. Post-Cartesian science will be based on a new premise, that is, in effect, a new epistemology, one that encompasses the essential unity of mind and matter. This will place science in a much stronger philosophical position and return it to its proper Newtonian wholism, a direct legacy of alchemy.

2000 MICHAEL CARMICHAEL - Alchemy Online. All Rights Reserved.

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