Utility

The idea of the application of knowledge is not in itself new; but when we talk of 'applied knowledge' in modern times, it is clear that it means something seriously different from attainment of wisdom, redemption from sin, or knowledge for its own sake. We mean rather the translation of new discoveries into useful ways of diminishing the inconveniences and dangers of living, and increasing its security, comfort, and temporal satisfaction. Such achievements have been attained before, though somewhat infrequently and not, one suspects, very often as the result of deliberate application.

Knowledge was earlier applied to different ends and in a very different spirit. The Greek advice to 'know thyself’ or the Psalmist's 'Be still and know that I am God' may certainly be applied, and doubtless with profit, but neither is of immediate advantage in the business of surviving in a dangerous world. There is a sense in which the very limitation of technological expertise in earlier generations ensured its continuing disregard; for the elite ruling groups of the ancient world applied their education in narrowly traditional spheres, beset by the conviction that while something might be preserved, little could be altered and change would assuredly be for the worse. Practical training came with the exercise of office; and for these duties the literate, rational man was already adequately prepared. The three great scourges of humanity: ignorance, poverty and disease, must be suffered by those to whose lot they fell, and, in these spheres, religious wisdom was not much more hopeful than philosophic. The faithful must learn to suffer and to die. Even this amount of wisdom might not have been acquired without the leisure and luxury bestowed by earlier technological achievements. The Greeks in particular were well aware that freedom from the immediate needs of obtaining a bare subsistence was a pre-requisite of any higher learning or literacy.

The great discoveries, however, lay in the past, hardly within the .limited historical memory of the earliest recorders of significant events. Whatever was owed to fire, to the wheel, to navigation, or to agriculture and metallurgy (those great. banes of civilization as Rousseau suggested), had come to be accepted or was attributed to the gods. The civilized life for the privileged few which rested on the economic advantages of these discoveries was not consciously dedicated to emulating such inventions. It remained, for centuries, devoted to the literate and numerate reflections of rational man in the belief, which is sound enough in itself, that it was this ability to think conceptually, to express these thoughts symbolically and to engage in rational discourse which most obviously differentiated man in the order of nature.

Mechanical and other crafts were, indeed, taught in pre-industrial societies. The techniques of warfare, which often registered some 'progress', if such a term is applicable, were necessarily taken seriously in communities constantly beset by marauding enemies. The Byzantines might almost be said to have maintained a research establishment in this field and certainly something approaching a staff college. Nevertheless, all such studies were rated less excellent, however useful, than the humanities which enshrined man's knowledge of himself, and the theology which preserved his reflections upon God. It would not be untrue to say that this assessment still influences our ideas of education today.

The period of rapid technological change, which comprises in effect the last two hundred years, seems to have resulted from a coming together of the modes of scientific enquiry, developing from the advances made in seventeenth century mathematics, with concurrent discoveries in the field of mechanical invention, which had for centuries been cut off from higher learning. The result, as is now obvious, has been to transform the environment in which mankind may live. One by one, formerly unprofessional activities, of which the best-known example is surgery, have become skilled, respectable and highly rewarded. So suddenly, to speak relatively, has this change of scene been brought about, that it was only recently that the field of social change itself became an object of disciplined study. Indeed, it was because the great advances in physics and chemistry and biology resulting in the development of modern medicine, for instance, were closely linked with unfettered scientific enquiry that some of the old tension between pure and applied studies has remained with us to this day. The literate arts and humanistic studies have so long been dominant that 'useful' studies may be subject to a longer period yet of being considered of secondary importance.

The boundaries between the old arts and the new are nevertheless being steadily blurred, as the advantages of the new fields of learning are grasped even by those educated on traditional lines. Modern industrial methods and continually developing scientific knowledge of the natural universe have been seen to transform the social structure itself so radically that a whole new range of enquiries, loosely called the social sciences, has differentiated itself in order to investigate the hitherto unchanging human sphere. From economics to individual psychology the extension of the humanities has been unparalleled in the last two centuries, to the point when many of the practitioners of these arts have been arguing, too, how far their enquiries should be devoted to the earlier scholarly ideal of knowledge pursued for its own sake and how far they should be guided by the known areas of need and difficulty which called for amelioration and change.

These reflections of ancient tensions in the world of learning have not been lessened by a quantitative factor which in itself is not relevant to the argument. The extension of human knowledge in many directions has inevitably meant an accumulation of information greatly in excess of anyone man's, or .even group's, intellectual grasp. A modern Aristotle seems an impossibility.

Moreover, the extent of applied knowledge has similarly involved the need to teach the new patterns of thinking and some at least of the increasing information to very many more people. Hence, have arisen problems of specialisation, of communication between groups learned only in one sphere, and of over-burdened courses within specific disciplines. Moreover, adherents of the traditional modes of scholarship can properly claim that their skills are not necessarily outmoded. However, extensive the new knowledge, however immediately useful, its acquiring and application require literacy, logic, accuracy and imagination. They can argue too that the very advantages to generations now living or concentration on immediate concerns may, through that very bias, deprive humanity in general of significant advances in the future.

There is indeed a good case to be made for conceding that all the four modes of learning which we have so far identified may rightly claim to preserve their places in the sphere of higher education, that none of them can yet be said to have superseded or ousted its apparent rivals. There is room, however, for sustained argument about the proper proportion to be kept in future between these differing spheres of interest. It is, indeed, quite clear that these proportions have already altered radically from earlier times, and that their future balance should be the result of a clear policy rather than of the accidental haggling of the academic market.

We must continue to give a high rating to the need for rational discourse and communication. The necessary disciplines in this field are unlikely to be widely different from what they have been. Literacy and numeracy could even be improved; and, in particular, attention might be paid to the interchange between them. Ignorance of the logical categories enumerated can be as disastrous as an inability to quantify what is clearly identified.

There does not seem to be in modern society any less need for a broad consciousness of values and harmony of purposes than in earlier and less complex human groups, We know much more about the ways in which such agreements are reached and the amount of variation which is tolerable; but we are still largely ignorant when it comes to moral failures, whether in the self or the wider society, whether the failure is expressed economically or politically.

There is certainly no case for diminishing the importance of disinterested investigation and criticism of received theories, both in the science of nature and the study of society. The traditional emphasis on free enquiry must not be allowed to be impaired by too strident a demand for useful knowledge.

Finally, the sphere of useful studies must take its turn on an equal and honourable footing with the longer established modes of enquiry, There is much disadvantage in the still lowly status of those kinds of human knowledge which do not obviously serve the high ends of philosophic contemplation or religious salvation, To truth, beauty and goodness we must add survival, not as an additional and hitherto unrecognised end, but as comprising all those aspects of temporal felicity, comfort, health and delight which, though pursued through the ages, have too often been denied the esteem accorded to the wisdom of the philosopher or the holiness of the saint.

We are not here faced with a frontier which is either clearly defined or has never been crossed in the past, It is largely an historical accident which accorded academic status and professional privileges to students of medicine and law, and to architects, clergymen and teachers, This is not to argue that the traditional academic 'arts' should in any way be demoted, but rather that other arts and crafts deserve to be promoted to the level at which the new knowledge acquired in either field enjoys a parallel esteem with the traditional knowledge worth preserving in both. (C, Vereker: Learning and Thinking, SCM Press).