ABSTRACT
Tracy constantly professed his faith in the importance of facts, observations and rigorous scientific method, and yet his writings often have the appearance of rationalist deduction from basic principles. In exploring this paradox or tension in his work, it is necessary to consider the images of scientific method and scientific laws which were part of Tracy’s intellectual borrowings. Why did he believe that methods of observation, analysis, and the search for general causal explanations, were the key to attaining certain or reliable knowledge? What kinds of ideas were to be excluded from the realm of positive knowledge? What was the proper starting-point for reaching a scientific understanding of man and society? Could the models derived from mechanics, optics, astronomy, and the biological sciences be applied directly to the study of man? These and similar questions are the concern of this chapter. In the first place, let us simply note the enormous intellectual excitement generated among savants in the eighteenth century by the scientific advances in the natural sciences. It was commonly believed that a “revolution” in the understanding of nature had commenced after 1600, and that a vast range of useful technological applications of theoretical discoveries were following in the wake of the new outlook. Tracy’s remarks on some of the major figures in this confrontation between the moderns and ancients, throws a great deal of light on his conception of science and the appropriate methods for attaining certainty. The writings of Bacon, Descartes, Newton and Lavoisier, contributed in various ways to Tracy’s understanding of science and method. (Condillac, another writer of enormous importance for Tracy, will be considered in the following section.)
