Eric Del Pozo presents an interesting case for the joys of language, but the piece is riddled with illogical arguments and blatant inconsistencies ["Some Words on Words ...," The Dartmouth, August 8, 1997]. He argues that the world is "not an objective edifice, and should not be treated as such," yet a few lines later, makes the normative assertion that "works of literature, from Plato to Hemingway, are inherently more valuable than any scientific manual."
Inherently? In this non-objective world, how can the author make any claim about the inherent value of any piece of literature, art, or even science? Whose "inherent" value are we using to compare Plato's Phaedo with McMurry's Organic Chemistry 2nd edition? It seems ridiculous to me to argue for any valuation of one book over another when the underlying premise of the column is that we live in a thoroughly subjective world!
I suppose, in response, one could argue that literature is more consistent with this non-objective world than organic chemistry is, simply because it is open to myriad interpretation rather than there being "right" and "wrong" answers; but this too is illogical. This is a somewhat Eurocentric idea that is actually objectivity posing as its opposite. How does the author account for certain English words that are conspicuously absent in the Chinese language? Or German words that are utterly untranslatable into English? It seems that language allows us American thinkers to argue about interpretation, yet seems to explicitly exclude thinkers in other cultures. Perhaps language is not that perfect tool which "allows for our ideas to be expressed instead of frustratedly withdrawn." Any American tourist in Japan would probably agree. Yet, I have often looked at Russian and Japanese journals of organic chemistry in Kresge Library, and always found that the electrophilic aromatic substitution of 1,4-Di-t-Butylbenzene is the same in each case -- and intelligible to any scientist who sees it.
This brings me to a final point. It is clear that the author places creative expression through language above the sciences in his hierarchy of knowledge and communication: "organic chemistry has never made anyone feel anything besides sleep deprivation," and "even da Vinci kept extensive journals, describing to a lesser extent his scientific ideas than his own feelings on his work." It is a pretty sweeping assertion to claim that organic chemistry has never caused anyone anything but the loss of sleep. I feel as though the author (if he has taken organic chemistry), has missed something fundamental and invaluable in organic chemistry. It is a brilliantly unified science. The depth and breadth of its understanding of the world around us is unsurpassed by anything; moreover I have found that, at the most minute levels, where philosophy fails us, organic chemistry and quantum physics have saved us from falling into absurdity. If Eric has never engaged in theoretical organic synthesis, he has deplorably missed the experience of the pure, unchecked, unpoliticized, unlimited creativity that a truly novel plan of synthesis involves. The many ways of progressing from compounds having only three carbons or less to the final product of isobutyl propionate is, for myself, as rewarding and as worthwhile as my conversations with Nietzsche, Marx, Husserl, Feuerbach, and Wittgenstein.
