The Gay Science and the third essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, we can discern an explicit or implicit (logically entailed) commitment to the following theses: 1) Science cannot tell why scientific knowledge is worth knowing. It needs an ideal to serve which secures its right to existence, its claim to value.¹ 2) This ideal situates science within a system of purposes which governs our understanding of the meaning of scientific activity, of the legitimate scope of scientific enquiry and of the nature of scientific method.² 3) Science is a tool in the service of the ascetic ideal.³ 4) Science is the driving force in the historical development of the ascetic ideal; the intellectual conscience which maintains and refines the ascetic ideal as it evolves from one particular instantiation of the ascetic ideal to another.⁴ 5) Science is the latest and noblest form of the ascetic ideal.⁵ 6) Science is the kernel of the ascetic ideal.⁶ 7) Science is an ally of the ascetic ideal but it could be otherwise — it could be an opponent.⁷" /> Science, value, and the ascetic ideal - Owen David | sdvig press