From Mary Midgley
John Richards writes that “science is the only tool” for answering questions (28 October, p 26). But of course it is only a tool for answering scientific questions.
When we ask about the wider connection of our various concerns we need the whole toolbox, and it has to include an imaginative background.
For instance, if we raise questions about our relation to the living creatures around us, we may see them in many ways: as fellow beings that share our destiny; as resources handed to us to exploit; as machines operating in a vast, meaningless factory; or just as statistics in a book.
If we do not even grasp that more than one such way of seeing is possible we may remain stuck for life in the first position that occurs to us, priding ourselves on our purity and objectivity. This, as Robert Cailliau points out on the same page, is the source of dogma. And it is in order to avoid this disaster – not just to produce handy scientific hypotheses – that we need imaginative thinking.
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Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
