The Law of the Instrument
By Peter Corney
The Law of the Instrument is an idea that Abraham Kaplan developed back in 1964 in his book “The Conduct of Enquiry.” It is the idea that any discipline too narrowly held or focussed on can tend to limit or restrict ones view of reality. It is based on the old adage that if all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail!
The principle can apply to many fields of study or endeavour. For example if a commercial business is dominated by salespeople then every problem of growth becomes a sales problem, when in fact it may be a product or service problem. In an organisation dominated by engineers every problem becomes an engineering one when in fact it may be a staff relationship or leadership issue.
It is why some people argue that scientists would be better scientists if they were also artists, poets or philosophers as well. In fact at the University of WA they have a project where artists and scientists work together on particular problems for this very reason. The synergy and co-operation between them widens the possibilities for solutions and new approaches.
In the field of enquiry about questions of meaning, human purpose and values the application of The Law of the Instrument is very relevant. For example if you are a ‘Materialist’, someone who believes that reality consists only of the material or physical, and you reject the possibility of any ‘meta-physic’, anything bigger than or beyond the physical – no spiritual, supernatural or transcendent elements to reality, then you severely limit and narrow the possible answers to questions about meaning, purpose and values. You also limit and impoverish the options and possibilities of what it means to be human. This later outcome is very evident today in some sectors of the growing field of neuroscience and can lead to a reductionist and mechanistic view of human persons and human consciousness and ultimately to a degraded view of human persons. (See the work of Raymond Tallis the UK neuroscientist and ethical humanist “Aping Mankind…” Acumen 2011 )
The Materialist World View is like locking yourself in a well-lit but windowless room, the ultimate captivity to The Law of the Instrument!
