|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
Some Important Issues in Philosophy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by Kenneth F. Dougherty, S.A., Ph.D., S.T.D.
For the classical philosophical realist in the Aristotelian tradition, cosmology is the philosophical study of inanimate (nonliving) mobile being. It is also referred to as the "philosophy of nature." For a discussion of this topic from the standpoint of commonsense classical philosophical realism, see The Philosophy of Nature: A brief introduction to cosmology. Please note that the discussion below is a technical presentation of the classical realist position. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Some philosophers, Spinoza among them, admit the existence of a substance but they deny that substances exist. These philosophers are called monists. Monism is any philosophical tenet that asserts that there exists and can exist only one being, independent, unrelated to any other, the sole constituent being of all apparently different beings and identical with them all. Among the ancient Greeks the Eleatics were monists. Parmenides in the 6th century B.C.E. considered the world to be one being without a beginning and without an end. Distinction and multitude are sensory illusions according to this theory. Modern monists include the following:
Christian Science and Theosophy are contemporary methods (rather than doctrines) which stem from the monistic trends in modern thought. Mary Baker Eddy affirmed that we have no material bodies. We are Spirit, Soul, and not body. All is God. Madame Blavatsky and other Theosophists maintain that all is in one life, one consciousness. The Theosophist movement and the influence of continental subjectivism is evidenced in nineteenth century American thought in the Concord School of Philosophy founded by William Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, George Ripley and Margaret Fuller were among the more representative members of this school. (See American Philosophy for more information about this movement.) Emerson in his poem, The World Soul, wrote:
Monism Proposed Under Any Form is Irrational We assert that monism in the absolute or mitigated sense as it is taught by any of the monistic schools is false. The meaning of monism has been given above. By irrational we mean it is not in accord with right reason. Our opponents are all those who maintain monism in any form and representatives of these trends have been cited above. Let's look at a syllogism about this:
The first premise states that reason demonstrates that mobile beings are many in species and in number. Although all beings have something in common, they are distinguished by other things. Man, a rational animal, is not the same as a species of animal such as the horse. The vegetable species that the horse feeds upon is not the same as the horse, nor is the mineral species in the soil the same as the vegetable species that is growing in it. The world revealed to us by our external senses is not a monistic world but a plurality of things. Who can assert that all these things are one and that plurality is an illusion without abandoning reason and experience? The second premise states that the denial of the objective plurality of mobile beings is evident in the theories of monism. In the monistic view of the cosmos there is no real difference between man and ape, between virtue and vice, between living and nonliving. All such differences are held to be illusory and in some way really resolved in the one. In the ultimate sense all is one, according to the monistic synthesis of reality. The monist is a person who has gone all out either for the pseudo-theory of materialism -- the belief that all that exists is matter; or the lyricism of idealism -- all that exists is the ideal, which of course is the ideal world of the monist. Monism usually involves a pseudo-mysticism which seeks to find in nature an immediate communion with the divine. The denial of the existence of substances, the identification of substance with quantity or quality as well as the failure to grasp the cosmological method itself, has led to many false theories regarding the ultimate constitution of mobile being, its properties and activities. This does not mean, however, that they are constructed purely out of fictions. Rather they are exaggerations of some true reports concerning the nature of corporeal reality. Thus as we shall see, atomism exaggerates the static properties whereas dynamism exaggerates the active properties of mobile being. Such systems cannot adequately explain mobile being, its properties and activities. Our interest in monism is restricted to the universe in the problem of the intrinsic constitution of mobile being. Thus, although atomism refers to a dualism of matter and motion, it is monistic in that it explains corporeal nature as singularly constituted of one principle, namely, extension to which motion is extrinsically related. This is a mitigated monism, such as is evidenced in Cartesianism. Implicitly, however, these theories contain the germ of absolute monism. Philosophical Atomism is to be Rejected Philosophical atomism is to be distinguished from scientific atomism. The classical realist has no quarrel with the chemico-physical theory of atoms. Here we are attacking philosophical atomism. Philosophical atomism is characterized by the basic principles:
Leucippus and Democritus (Fifth century B.C.E.) were pure atomists. They sought to explain all reality on the materialistic basis of atomism. René Descartes, the mechanist, (although he disdains the term "atom") sought to explain all bodies in terms of quantity in local motion and figure. Pierre Gassendi (1592-1656), a materialist, did much to bring atomism into vogue in modern times. We argue for the rejection of philosophical atomism in this way:
The first premise is evident from the statement of the theories of philosophical atomism. The second premise is based on our knowledge from the natural sciences that specifically different mobile beings exist in the universe. Thus we note the specific differences between the organic and inorganic; and between plants, animals and man. A theory of homogeneous matter cannot account for such specific heterogeneity. Furthermore, if we admit the theory of homogeneous matter, we must endow the beings of the universe with the same natural aptitudes and, therefore, with a basic principle of finality which is the same in all. Such an oversimplified picture of the real world is fictional. The leaves of a plant in seeking light are not moved in the same way and to the same end as a bird seeking material for its nest. Then we argue:
The first premise is based on the fact that philosophical atomists assert that natural bodies are essentially inert. Inert matter is said to be endowed with local motion which is communicated to it from without. Regarding the second premise. It is evident that all material forces are accompanied by local motion. We grant that all the forces of nature produce local motion, but we deny that they produce nothing else but local motion. The empirical sciences show that bodies are not intrinsically inert. They have inherent energies. Natural bodies are not simply quantitative, they are also qualitative; they have active principles within them. For example, in the radioactive physical atoms, alpha and beta particles are ejected with enormous velocities. This not a case of inert matter. The reflection of the famous physicist Mach are worthy of note on this subject: "There is no such thing as a purely mechanical phenomenon. When two bodies communicate velocity to one another, the resultant phenomenon appears at first to be one of movement only (local motion) but certain thermal electrical and magnetic variations are always present which will modify the mechanical effect accordingly. Inversely, thermal, electrical and mechanical conditions produce movement and so purely mechanical phenomena may be reckoned as mere attractions invented to facilitate the study of the physical world." (Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics.) Philosophical atomism, or mechanical atomism as it is sometimes called, does not explain the constitution of mobile being. It exaggerates the importance of the quantitative aspects of mobile beings and their local motion. Philosophical atomism is therefore a pseudo-philosophy of nature. In the history of human thought it marks another attempt to draw a philosophical system out of the science of phenomena. It was greatly in vogue in the last century. As Eddington notes: "The Victorian physicist felt that he knew just what he was talking about when he used such terms as matter and atoms. Atoms were tiny billiard balls -- a crisp statement that supposed to tell you all about their nature...But now we realize that science has nothing to say as to the intrinsic nature of the atom. It is like everything else in physics, a schedule of pointer readings..." (Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World.) The downfall of philosophical atomism leads to new theories concerning the cosmos of mobile being. Eddington and other scientists maintain that it was a death blow to human certitude on the problem of the nature of things. They are now satisfied to speak about phenomena reported in the pointer-readings of the instruments of the new physics. Nature is viewed by them as indeterminate, dynamic, unknown in its intrinsic constitution, phenomena without substratum, shadow without substance. This is a logical consequence, if we admit that the method of the new physics is the only scientific approach to the knowledge of the cosmos. Physical Dynamism is False The classical realist is opposed to the one-sided view that mobile being is ultimately only dynamic. He does not deny that mobile beings have energies or powers. He denies that unextended forces or energies are the ultimate constitutive principles of mobile beings. Philosophical atomism denied the reality of intrinsically active mobile beings. Philosophical dynamism of the last century on the other hand, denied the reality of extended particles and recognized only forces as real. This dynamism asserted:
Contemporary dynamism maintains that energy is the ultimate that is known by man in nature. Heraclitus (Sixth century B.C.E.), according to Aristotle, asserted that "all things are in motion, nothing is steadfast." In modern times the first great exponent of dynamism was Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), cofounder of the calculus. He set down as his first principle, that the primary entities of mobile beings are simple, unextended and indivisible substances, which he called monads. These monads are not subject to outside influences because monads are simple entities and movement implies change of parts. G. Boscovich, a famous mathematician (1711-1787), applied the theory of unextended entities to the inorganic world alone. He added that these entities are incapable of immediate contact, hence action always takes place at a distance. Carbonelle (1890) introduced into the theory the distinction between ponderable and imponderable matter (ether). Rudolph Lotze, Frederick Paulsen and Edward von Hartmann, toward the end of the last century, endowed these simple entities with life. This sort of philosophy of the cosmos is called hylozoism and considers all matter as living. The philosophy of organism of Whitehead espoused this view. The philosophical energism of Mach is another modern form of dynamism. Also listed among the adversaries of this thesis are the proponents of the communist dialectical materialism as formulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the last century. It may be resolved into the following three basic principles concerning the universe:
Thus, the strife of opposite elements is synthesized in the compound according to the Marxist. This theory is set forth by Engels in his work, Anti-Duhring Dialectics of Nature. Mitin, in his textbook Dialectical Materialism which was used in Soviet colleges, criticizes what he believes to be the idealism of Mach in the latter's energism. The Marxists are attempting to uphold their dynamic materialism against idealism because of their traditional odium for Hegelian idealism. Matter to the Marxist is anything objective and dynamic in the sense of their three laws. As Mitin writes in his textbook: "In place of the old unchangeable atoms there has appeared a system of moving electrons. Therefore, say the Machians, matter has disappeared. But actually, more exact principles are replacing primitive physical laws." Mitin, along with other Soviet theoreticians, was dedicated to the task of convincing the scientific world that dialectical materialism is the scientific explanation of the cosmos. One must be careful not to classify all physicists of our times as dynamists. In their calculations physicists sometimes treat the particles of matter as reduced to the center of gravity as to a point; they prescind from the material medium in which the forces operate and look only to the effects of energy at some distant point. Actually, such a method does not deny the extension of mobile beings. It is simply focusing attention elsewhere. A physicist may consider the mass of a mobile being of whatever size as if it were concentrated at a point, for instance, the center of gravity. If a physicist is considering the lines of force proceeding from a molecule, the size of the central particle is so minute as to be negligible in certain calculations, and so he may find it convenient to prescind from its volume altogether and treat the lines of force as emanating from a point. Such a conceptual schema gives rise to a language that prescinds from the extended mobile beings and concrete media, although it makes no formal denial of these. Let's look at the argument:
The first premise is self-evident. Regarding the second premise. Monads posited by Leibniz, the point-forces of Palmieri, and the pure energies described by the energist are understood by them to be simple, immaterial and unextended entities. But unextended beings cannot form extended beings. No being can give what it has not got. Hence, dynamism fails to demonstrate the constitutive principles of the essence of mobile being because it denies the reality of extension, an important property in comprehending mobile being. The next argument:
The first premise is evident from the exposition of dynamism. Regarding the second premise. Either these supposed primary entities act upon one another or they act upon themselves alone. If they act upon one another, the other that receives the action is passive. Hence the primary entities are active and passive. If they act only themselves then there is no explanation for the relations which science everywhere verifies between the changes of mobile beings. Consequently, if one is to save the theory one must introduce the hypothesis of pre-established harmony, which is to say that God regulates the course of mobile beings as if they act on another but they really do not. This hypothesis is not founded upon the world as it is known by experience and by reason. It is a refusal to face the problem. Action at a Distance The dynamist admits "action at a distance," that is action without any medium through which the action passes to the patient. Hence, they posit only empty space between their unextended entities. But experimental science rejects as physically impossible the action of a physical force through a total vacuum. If there were "actions at a distance" the effect at a distance would be instantaneous. Time, however, is required for sound, light, or other phenomenon to travel. If the phenomenon is a wave, it must have a medium. A particle also takes time to move across the gap, and so it is not "action at a distance." Dynamists cannot explain why gravitation diminishes as the distance increases and vice versa. This should not be if "action at a distance," which would be instantaneous, took place. Furthermore, empty spaces or vacua, which the dynamist posits, are contradictory to motion. Once an initial mover has ceased moving a mobile being, the medium does not rest. It facilitates motion. But a vacuous medium has nothing to facilitate motion. Motion could not be in a vacuum. It violates the principle that whatever is moved is moved by another. We are speaking here about a perfect vacuum and not the so-called "vacuum" spoken of by the physicist as in the experiment of pumping the air out of the bell jar. The latter is not really a case of a vacuum. The Common Error of Atomism and Dynamism The philosophical evaluation of these errors must distinguish them from the physical theories of the special sciences of nature (the empirical sciences). For example, physicists sometimes speak of the photon, light darts of unit energy, as having no mass. Now this must not be taken in the sense that the physicist means a photon is immaterial. Philosophers should not interpret the terms of the physicist strictly. What the physicist means is that the photon has no rest mass. Furthermore, mass and matter are not identical. Although the physicist at times speaks of the photon as having no rest mass, this is not the same as saying that it is immaterial and unextended in the strict sense or in the dynamist's sense. Consider another example: Einstein and Infeld as physicists affirm that "Matter is where the concentration of energy is great; fields where the concentration of energy is small." (Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution of Physics.) This descriptive statement is not to be judged as dynamistic in the philosophical sense. It describes energy in terms of great and small; it does not define mobile beings as simply unextended entities. The confusion between cosmology and the science which is now termed "physics" has led some thinkers to philosophize physics. Thus for the philosophical atomist, matter is inert; for the philosophical dynamist matter is strictly a form of simple energy. If we grant that the method of physics can go everywhere, so to speak, then we will agree that the Cartesian physicist of the seventeenth century had a perfect right to say that matter is essentially inert, just as the dynamist today may assert that matter is a form of simple energy, and we may patiently wait to hear what the physicist of tomorrow will say in view of future hypotheses. After all, if we put our trust in physics for the intelligibility of the cosmos of mobile being, then we must expect an ever-changing story. The contemporary form of dynamism is a reaction against philosophical atomism, which asserted that bodies are essentially inert. The march of physical science has exploded this latter view particularly in the researches of microphysics. The discovery by Faraday of the laws of electrolysis as demonstrating that for every univalent atom there is an electrical charge (or a multiple thereof for a multivalent atom) laid the ground work for the description of the subatomic world. In 1900, Sir Joseph Thompson had identified the electron. In 1918, his pupil, Lord Rutherford, had chipped a fragment from the atom and discovered the proton, another particle. In 1932, Sir James Chaddwick discovered a third particle which is called a neutron. Rutherford had reasoned that the atom must consist of a number of negatively charged electrons flying around a central body, the nucleus or core. Now we know that this true. This tiny core is only one five-thousandth part of the atom in size though it is so dense that it contains nearly all the atom's weight. The positively charged nucleus and the negative electrons attract each other, but the electrons do not join with the nucleus because their speed keeps them moving along their orbits. Experimental science does not pretend to have a complete picture of the atom. It is still discovering subatomic particles: as, positrons, mesotrons and neutrinos. Some scientists have reacted to these discoveries, which emphasize the dynamic aspects of mobile being, by affirming that energy is the basis of everything. Microphysics has shown that mobile being has multiple dynamic aspects. It has not shown that mobile being is fundamentally simple energy. The mathematical character of microphysics could not touch upon an unquantitative or ultimately simple mode of being even as a probability. Physics and the other experimental sciences are by nature an ever increasing serial report about events. They never discover the primary constitutive principles that underlie the events. Men of science reflecting on some newly discovered serial report may think they have the basic truth of the universe but subsequent reports show that they have been studying only aspects or "events" which lead to further problems of research. So long as men mistake the serial events for basic truth we will have the philosophical atomists and energists. Physicists will try to be philosophers. Of course it is natural for man to want to know the basic story of the universe. If a man has no formal training in philosophy, he can easily turn to the best tools that he has at hand to attempt to philosophize and for some men the best they have at hand is their physics. But all the physicists in the world with all their equations and all their machines can never put all their serial reports about mobile being together and know the primary constitutive principles of mobile being. They do not have the tools, the methods for knowing ultimates. Such attempts must end in skepticism, the theory that truth is ever variable. Physics divides mobile into a multiplicity of measurements, a logical-real world of calculations. These measurements of integral parts and their functions are not the same as the science of mobile being itself but rather they attempt to tell us how mobile beings act under given conditions. Sciences are distinguished by their formal objects. Physics is restricted to physical measurements of mobile being; it describes its measurements but does not render intelligible the meaning of mobile being. Thus to say that physics can offer any knowledge of the intrinsic constitution of mobile being is to say that mobile being is the same as its quantity or its quality. The philosophical atomist and the dynamist are driven to these conclusions because they start with the wrong method in cosmology, the wrong approach to the problem of the meaning of mobility. What seems to be small error in the beginning becomes a great error at the conclusion. Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
|
|
|
Main Page & Index |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.