ABSTRACT
Art and religion, ethics, politics and history all stand in uneasy relations to science or philosophy in certain seventeenth-century classifications of learning. They are no better placed in the scheme of the sciences proposed by scientific empiricism. Either they are made to appear inferior to science for no compelling reason, or else they are questionably assimilated to science. Is there a way of overturning the low valuations of art and religion, and of asserting the autonomy of ethics and politics? Or are the classifications that we have been considering, though imperfect, along the right lines? Is science in fact the master branch of learning—in the sense that it is the most valuable branch of learning? Or must equal worth be accorded to some non-sciences? Is science in principle perfectly inclusive, or are certain branches of learning irremediably unscientific? Equally, must reason be regarded as the master faculty, superior to memory and imagination? Or is a different account possible?
