IMAGINING OTHER
How Enlightened was the
Enlightenment?
Links: Imagining Other Index page
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to week 2: Introduction part 2 Week 4: Economic Underpinnings
Week 3: Science (philosophy of
science).
Summary:
1. The Enlightenment and new ways of thinking: #new ways of thinking – a summary.
1.1 Rejection of Bible, tradition,
and ‘the ancients’ as sources of knowledge
1.2 Experimental observation,
universal reason, logic
1.3 Philosophy & science
(metaphysics, epistemology – see below).
1.4 The ‘old world’ of
beliefs:
1.4.1
#alchemy, magic
1.4.2
#witchcraft (see also #Easlea)
2. Precursors: #precursors
2.1 three philosophical
precursors:
- Bacon: faith separate from
reason; empiricism & the scientific method (induction) – the weakness of
relying on induction only
- Descartes: the cogito and rationalism, deduction –
weaknesses
- Hobbes: deduction +
materialism.
2.2 others: #Hooke and Harvey #Kepler
3. Enlightenment epistemology (the philosophy of
knowledge):
3.1 Locke (also an
empiricist) and the mind as tabula rasa:
all ideas come from experience #John Locke
3.2 Hume and scepticism #David Hume
3.3 Kant #Immanuel
Kant and Leibniz #Leibniz
4. Science (‘natural philosophy’) – its method and development
and achievements during the Enlightenment: Sir Isaac Newton
4.1 ‘natural philosophy’ #natural philosophy
4.2
4.3
4.4 the spread of science
& some scientific achievements
(Royal Society 1660, (cf
4.5 Science and the French
Revolution #revolution
5. A contemporary critique of scientific
method/philosophy of science in the 18th c. #critique
- William Blake #Blake
6. Further
6.1 Brian Easlea: nature as female, science as male in 18th century thought
(especially
Links to further notes on
Brian Easlea: Obituary and Article by
Brian Easlea on his love of birds
- the need for a wholistic
approach #wholism
- others:
#Brian
Appleyard – against reductionism (our minds are not computers)
#Julian
Baggini – materialism, truth, scepticism – debate with Lawrence Krauss
#Joanna
Bourke – what it means to be human
#Emanuel Derman
– scientific ‘laws’ and the paradox that we are free to look for them
#Marcus
Gabriel - science is not ultimate knowledge
#Sam Harris
- science leads to truth and morality, religion/belief can lead to relativism
#Prof. R.O.
Kapp – ‘science versus materialism’
#Jaron
Lanier – impact of technology on our lives (Who Owns the Future? Etc)
#Primo Levi
– science and the humanities are part of one outlook
#Nicholas
Maxwell – knowledge and wisdom – science pursues valuable truth i.e. there
is a human dimension
#Carlo
Rovelli – Seven Brief Lessons on Physics; also a link to a piece on the
usefulness of philosophy (against science) and in the context of Brexit...
#Rupert
Sheldrake – consciousness is distinct from matter – challenging
conventional science
#Raymond
Tallis – opposing ‘currently fashionable atheists’ – we do not have direct
knowledge of reality, only of ‘abstractions’.
7. #References
Notes
1. The Enlightenment and new ways of thinking: new
sources of authority & a new philosophy: (Source: O’Hara, 2010, ch 1)
A reminder of the key point
about Enlightenment: it was an age that developed new beliefs and new
reasons/justification for holding them (new philosophical arguments and
grounds…).
1.1 Crucially, authority was no longer sought in the
Bible, in tradition or other (e.g. classical Greek) authorities, but the
individual was free to seek out the truth for him/herself. (See last week: 2.1
humanism). For example:
- ‘divine right’ was replaced
by the social contract (to be dealt with in weeks 8 & 9);
- religious intolerance and
civil wars were replaced by toleration (week 5);
- and science was developed as a new kind of authority, replacing tradition
and past experts.
Kant puts the case for the
rejection of tradition:
(O’Hara p 4): ‘An age cannot
bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it
cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge, purify itself of errors,
and progress its general enlightenment’ – i.e. the past cannot bind the future.
1.2 In the Enlightenment,
then, the new way of thinking meant that experimental
observation, universal reason
(i.e. available to all) and logic
were more important than past ideas.
1.3 There were also new
philosophical ideas about metaphysics
(see later – week 5 religion), and about how
we know things (philosophy of knowledge, epistemology), but it is important to note that many of these ideas
were developments of new ways of thinking that originated in the 16th
and 17th centuries (during the Renaissance and the Reformation):
1.4.1 Alchemy and magic declined, according to O’Hara (see Keith Thomas, in
Religion and the Decline of Magic, 1983, who wrote of ‘the disenchantment of
the world’). Though we do know that Newton and others secretly studied alchemy
(see Brian Easlea’s work referred to below #Easlea).
1.4.2 The
law against witchcraft was repealed
in the 18th century. Note then, that witchcraft had been believed in
– practised - for hundreds of years...
A long and thorough piece by
Blake Morrison, Guardian 21.07.12 includes figures for hangings of witches:
most trials were in the 17th century – ‘many more witches were put to
death before the law against witchcraft in England was finally repealed in
1736’. Addison confessed ‘I believe, in general, that there is such a thing as
witchcraft, but can give no credit to any particular instance of it.’ See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/20/blake-morrison-under-the-witches-spell and below: #references
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/07/cursed-from-circe-to-clinton-why-women-are-cast-as-witches
Madeline Miller describes the many ‘types’ of witch, and argues that witches
transgress norms of female power – and the persecution of witches was
‘entrenched social misogyny, the goal of which was to repress the intellect of
women.’ Above all, there were ‘good witches’ who used their knowledge of herbs,
healing and midwifery to serve their communities.’ She refers to Matilda Joslyn
Gage who wrote ‘Woman, Church and State’ where the good witch was ‘the
profoundest thinker, the most advanced scientist of her age.’
In the last decade (despite
progress being made by women in the #metoo movement etc) the UN has reported a
rise in the killing of ‘witches’ across the world – in India, Saudi Arabia,
Ghana – and in the US 21% of people believe in witches...
2.1 Three philosophical precursors: (controversies
that preceded and pre-occupied the Enlightenment):
Francis Bacon
(1561 – 1626) had distinguished between faith
and reason – faith means trusting
the source of a belief, reason means working it out for oneself. Some things
(Bacon argued) we cannot work out for ourselves and so need faith e.g.
existence of God.
Bacon laid down a set of
procedures for what we now call scientific method. He was an empiricist: observation and experiment are used to identify basic facts, from
which scientific laws can be deduced.
Rene Descartes
(1596 – 1650) distinguished between knowledge gained from reason and that
gained from the senses. This is connected with his best-known idea: that there
is only one thing I can be completely certain of (our senses can deceive us,
the real world may be an illusion, other people may not exist…) and that is my
thinking self. Hence: cogito ergo sum.
As a result of this way of
understanding the world, Descartes and his followers were more interested in
reason than in experiment (they were rationalists
rather than empiricists – cf. also Hobbes below). Moreover, certainty can only
be had by working something out oneself – not with others. His cogito also separated mind from matter,
which posed the problem: how do the two interact to get knowledge? Descartes
believed in some innate ideas e.g. God, maths, logic and some metaphysical
concepts such as identity or substance. (O’Hara p 56)
Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) He said that to build up a theory of politics we must
first identify – largely by introspection – a number of basic propositions.
From these we then build up more complex statements.
The method, he argued, is
much the same as that used in geometry: another instance of how thinkers as we
approach the Enlightenment are influenced by maths and science rather than by
traditional authorities. Hobbes was a “rationalist”, not an empiricist (cf
Bacon above).
Hobbes went so far as to
argue that all our feelings and thoughts can be accounted for in terms of
movement of some body/bodies (physical entities - an early form of
“materialism”).
He used this view of human
beings as the basis of his political theory: every individual is driven by the
desire to have what they want; this leads to competition between individuals;
this competition needs to be regulated by a powerful monarch or small group of
rulers.
2.2 Others who contributed
to the growth of science:
Robert Hooke: Philip Ball, in: Curiosity: How science
became interested in everything –
Bodley Head – shows there wasn’t one kind of science in the 17th
century, Newton’s maths was good for planetary motion but was no good for
chemistry biology or geology. It was also inadequate in study of the very
small. Royal Society believed science = measurement, but Robert Hooke thought some things too fuzzy to be precisely
measured. The book also shows how much opposition science had to endure – and
how all knowledge up til then had been arrived at by practical, skilled
craftsmen and the like. Some resisted examining things that were difficult to
see/study because God must have meant us not to study them! (Peter Forbes
review Guardian 09.06.12).
William Harvey: Thomas Wright, in: Circulation: William
Harvey’s Revolutionary Idea, Chatto.
1628: De Motu Cordis. Saw the heart as a powerful and robust pump, and this
influenced Descartes and the neoteric or mechanistic philosophers – though
Johannes Kepler: 1609 A New Astronomy stated two laws: all planets move in ellipses with the
sun as a focus; a planet moves along its orbit in such a manner that it sweeps
out equal areas in equal times. 1619: The Harmony of the World: planets emit
musical sounds... also third law: the squares of the time taken for planets to
orbit are proportional to the cubes of their distances from the sun. This led
to
3. Enlightenment epistemology:
Both Bacon and Descartes
paved the way for another philosopher, who is an important precursor to the
Enlightenment: John Locke (1632 –
1704).
For Locke reason enables us
to distinguish true from false, and to remove ignorance – he was (in his Essay
Concerning Human Understanding 1687) opposed to the existence of innate ideas,
and saw the mind as a blank sheet - tabula
rasa - on which experience imprints knowledge. He tried to overcome the
problem of Cartesian dualism by arguing that all ideas come from experience.
Locke’s approach is empiricism
(knowledge comes from experience and observation). This, says O’Hara (p 58), is
not a flawless philosophy, but it ‘proved fruitful’.
But, as noted above, there is
still a problem: if all we have are sensations, in our minds, how do we know
about their connection with the outside world? Couldn’t they all be illusions?
However, Locke’s lack of
concern for metaphysical issues, and his view that there are limits to what we
can be certain about (*), together with the implied separation of experience
from reality, did all lead towards (a healthy!) scepticism and tolerance
(Three Letters on Toleration 1689).
(*) maths is certain, some
aspects of morality may be certain also, but scientific propositions were not
certain but very probable, while ideas about space, time, and the real nature
of objects are not certain at all.
Scepticism was, however,
pushed to its limits by David Hume
(1711 – 1776), who argued that our perceptions can never tell us about any laws
regulating reality – for example, we cannot prove
causality just because event b always
follows event a.
Another philosopher whose
ideas were influential, especially on Kant, and who could be seen as marking
the start of the Enlightenment, (or ‘straddling the beginning of the
Enlightenment and the end of the 17th century, as O’Hara puts it)
was Gottfried Leibniz (1646 – 1716).
His most lasting contributions have been in mathematics, but his metaphysics
(we live in the best of possible worlds, since God would not have created an
imperfect world) suggested an over-optimistic view of the world, which was
ridiculed by Voltaire. (See week 5). He tried to overcome the dualistic logic
of Descartes and others with an elaborate theory of ‘monads’, and by arguing
that the world exists in the mind of God.
It took Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) - who is seen as central to the
Enlightenment - to come up with a solution to the problems posed by dualism.
However, Kant’s philosophy is ‘fiendishly difficult’ (says O’Hara)!
O’Hara (p 54) summarises
Kant’s solution: ‘the world supplies the sensations with which we gain
knowledge, but the mind orders them into significant concepts and relations.
Causation (for instance) could not be observed; it was imposed on sensation by
our mind’s sense-making capabilities.’ We also impose things like space and
time on what we perceive – space and time are subjective, they are part of our
apparatus of perception (Russell). There are
real objects in the world – things ‘in themselves’ – but these are unknowable. They
are not in space and time, they are not substances (for Kant). This
philosophical position is ‘idealism’ (in opposition to ‘realism’) – but since
Kant did not want to deny the existence of real objects entirely, and his
formulation is designed to show how we know about reality, it is called
‘transcendental idealism’.
Our minds classify the world,
but the knowledge we then have is true ‘a priori’. Apart from space and time,
the (12) a priori concepts we have about the world Kant calls ‘categories.’ He
divided the ‘categories’ into four groups, i.e.: quantity (unity, plurality,
totality), quality (reality, negation, limitation), relation
(substance-and-accident, cause-and-effect, reciprocity), modality (possibility,
existence, necessity).
‘… our mental constitution is
such that they [the categories] are applicable to whatever we experience’ –
except things in-themselves (Russell, 1946, p 681). When we try to apply these
‘categories’ to things which are not experienced (such as things in themselves)
we find we have ‘antimonies’ or contradictory statements, where both the
statement and its opposite are true. For example: the world has a beginning in
time – the world has no beginning in time… (more examples at loc cit).
To arrive at the conclusion summarised
above, Kant argued that Leibniz had
confused different kinds of proposition:
(i) the distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ propositions: as
Russell puts it (1946, p 679 ff): “an analytic proposition is one in which the
predicate is part of the subject, e.g. ‘a tall man is a man’; a synthetic
proposition is one that is not analytic. All
the propositions that we know only through experience are synthetic”. (But
not all synthetic propositions can only be known through experience, which was
Leibniz’s view – see below).
While we know the truth or
falsity of an analytic proposition through analysing the concepts in it: ‘a
tall man is a woman…’ We cannot test a
synthetic statement (like ‘Tuesday was a wet day’) simply through analysing the
concepts in it.
However, for Kant, Leibniz made a mistake when he argued
that all synthetic propositions are known only through experience – in other
words there can be statements that are synthetic (not analytic) and a priori…
(ii) Leibniz and others were
also confusing the distinction between
‘empirical’ and ‘a priori’ propositions: “an empirical proposition is one which we
cannot know except by the help of sense-perception” - an a priori proposition
is one “which, though it may be elicited by experience, is seen, when known, to
have a basis other than experience.” The
facts of history and geography (says Russell) and the laws of science are
empirical; the propositions of pure maths are a priori. Putting two pebbles
together with two more helps [by repeated experience] to understand the general
proposition ‘2 + 2 = 4’ - but the process of putting pebbles together cannot lead to a general law: we know the
general law a priori…
Whereas Hume argued that
causality cannot be known a priori, Kant said that although it is synthetic, it
could be known a priori. Such a
statement/concept, along with the propositions of geometry and mathematics are,
for Kant, both synthetic [related to experience] and a priori [true by definition
of the terms used].
Kant’s formulation seemed to
overcome the Cartesian dualism of mind and body, and Leibniz’s idealism, and to
allay the scepticism of Hume. However, we will return to Kant to deal with his
(to my mind) more important contribution to ethics (week 6).
Leibniz’s
contribution to the understanding of time is held (by e.g. Lee Smolin, author
of Time Reborn) to be in advance of his time (oops!), and to be preparing for
Einstein: Leibniz understood that time is not simply linear, but relational and
dynamic – an aspect of change, where change means an alteration in a dynamic
network of relationships that define the world. Space also arises from a
dynamic of relationships. For
Leibniz developed binary
numbers (that underlie modern computers), and he invented calculus
independently of
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/scienceandnature
includes Lee Smolin on time...
4. Natural philosophy and its achievements:
4.1 Natural philosophy:
What we now call ‘science’ in
the Enlightenment was known as ‘natural philosophy’ – and note how
‘nature/natural’ are key words in the Enlightenment. Natural philosophy
involved the investigation of nature by
reason.
The Enlightenment view of
‘natural philosophy’ was ‘kick-started’ by Descartes (says O’Hara); Descartes
‘changed the epicentre of philosophical thought away from metaphysics – the
study of the nature of reality – to epistemology – the study of how we know
things’ (O’hara p 42); and others in the 17th century contributed to
our modern understanding of the ‘natural’ world, e.g. Kepler, Galileo, Hooke,
Boyle, Harvey. For O’Hara, science in the 17th century was
‘chaotic’… The 18th century
marked a consolidation of science, and in the 19th century science
really took off and was widely accepted…
4.2 Sir Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) was the most influential figure in the scientific
Enlightenment. The French were slow to discard Descartes (1596 – 1650) –
because their outlook was more ‘rationalist’ than ‘empiricist’.
Science developed a physical theory,
which ‘expunged almost all traces of animism from European thought’ (Porter ?
See Flesh in the Age of Reason, 2002). There were clear achievements using this
approach, but it also had its critics (see section 5 below).
Astronomy had been dominated
by Ptolemaic system, which was supported by the church (and which agreed with
Aristotle): this put the earth at the centre of the universe (the geo-centric model).
Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler,
Galileo all either showed this was wrong (and put the sun at the centre – the helio-centric model) or produced
alternatives. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, having been forced to
recant (he died in 1642 – about the time that
One consequence of the
sun-centred theory was to make humans less important in the universe (than if
we were at the centre), at the same time implying that we were ‘less
interesting’ to God (hence the opposition of the church). On the other hand, if
we are not ‘created in the image of God’, then this can be taken as implying
that God has less day-to-day control over us. This then freed humans to achieve
things for themselves…
Descartes had developed a
theory of ‘vortices’ to explain the motions of the planets etc, and his
reasoning and calculations actually supported Copernicus’s helio-centric view,
but (says O’Hara) there were details that needed to be worked out. Descartes
explained the attraction and repulsion of bodies by centrifugal and centripetal
forces (a theory that was replaced by
Many astronomers had
identified the mathematics of the relationship between the distance between the
sun and the planets, and the attraction of the sun, i.e. the inverse square
law, but to compute this accurately was too difficult until the calculus was invented by
While Descartes had used metaphysical
principles and a priori ideas,
(i) to create, by reasoning, a system of mathematically-specified
definitions, axioms and theorems; ( = deduction, these formulations will be
self-evident)
(ii) to interpret this in
terms of observable aspects of the
real world ( = induction);
(iii) using this
interpretation, to compare the deductive consequences of the system to experimental evidence.
The lack of explanation of
the nature of gravity led to criticisms of
4.4 The spread of scientific knowledge, brief notes on
some scientific breakthroughs (from O’Hara ch 7):
In Britain the Royal Society
was founded 1660; the equivalent in France in 1666, Berlin in 1700; and in 1768
an American society was formed from the merger of two already existing groups,
and the first president of the American Philosophical Society Held at
Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge was Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790.
It was (says O’Hara) a ‘sociable age’, and urbanisation led to people meeting
together and discussing the latest discoveries etc. Along with the institutions
described, there were private societies, journals, salons etc.
Electricity:
Gray, Dufay, the
Luigi Galvani and the
twitching frog’s leg…
Chemistry:
Galileo, Hooke, Boyle – phlogiston (Georg Stahl) theory helped study of
combustion and related topics, until proved false (replaced by the
understanding of oxygen) – Black, Cavendish on the components of air (include
‘combustible gas’) – Priestley and ‘dephlogisticated air’ (oxygen in fact) –
Lavoisier, identified oxygen, also found that it was a component of all acids
(*) see Postscript on Lavoisier and politics.
The age of the earth – fossils – challenge to James Ussher’s 1650 calculation of 4004
years! E.g. Halley from salt in the sea, Buffon from evolution of species,
Lehmann from rock stratification. Abraham Werner suggested the earth was more
than a million years old. The
Biology and medicine:
Linnaeus and classification
of living things, Buffon… Hales: how
water passed through plants, role of light etc: a mechanical explanation. Descartes had already suggested that
animals were machines (humans alone have capacity for thought). De la Mettrie:
Man a machine 1747 – goodness = pleasure of the senses, virtue = self-love
(‘pursued his version of virtues so far that he died’ !!?? O’Hara p. 126).
The advantage of the new
Cartesian approach over the old ‘humours’ theory, (and ‘draining’ to alter the
balance of the humours), was that it led to an interest in physical structures,
post mortems and dissection – e.g. John Hunter (1728 – 1793) à surgery.
Inoculation (brought from
Maths and logic:
Note that
Leibniz published the calculus first, and invented much new notation which
helped maths to advance (in
Thomas Bayes contributed to
probability theory, and Leonhard Euler (‘the greatest mathematician of the
Enlightenment) created many theorems etc. together with more new notation (p
133).
Euler worked with D’Alembert
on the Encyclopedia – note the Enlightenment aim of socially useful knowledge.
French figures include
Condorcet and Lazare Carnot – both of whom suffered at the hands of the revolutionary
extremists (Condorcet died before being executed, Carnot was deported). (*) See
Postscript on Condorcet and politics.
4.5 Science and the French Revolution:
An excellent book, ‘No Need
for Geniuses: Revolutionary Science in the Age of the Guillotine’ by Steve
Jones (Little, Brown 2016) shows that scientists such as Lavoisier and
Condorcet not only had a broad knowledge of different fields, but were also
deeply involved in politics:
-
Lavoisier divided
his time each day between science and public affairs. Published his Traite
elementaire de chimie in 1789. A wealthy nobleman, friend of Benjamin Franklin,
joint discoverer of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. His work on refining
saltpetre into gunpowder led to a church becoming a refinery for up to 100 tons
of saltpetre a day. An armaments festival in 1792 celebrated his centrifuge.
But two years later he was accused of selling adulterated tobacco and of
profiting from collecting taxes under the old regime – he was then guillotined.
-
- the Marquis de
Condorcet a mathematician, permanent secretary of the Academie des Sciences,
called for a republic after 1789. A feminist, argued for the extension of the
rights of man to women. Was imprisoned during the Terror and found dead –
poisoned either by himself or his guards. Didn’t finish a Sketch for a
Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind... There is a tomb to him
in the Pantheon, but his bones are not there.
-
Marat was also a
scientist, researching into electricity, light and heat – and sexually
transmitted diseases (!). Translated
-
Antoine
Parmentier introduced the potato...
From a book review by Ruth
Scurr, New Statesman 8-14 April 2016.
5. Critiques of scientific method and the philosophy
of science:
Blake, reason and the imagination:
A contemporary critic of
‘Newtonian mechanics’ was William Blake (1757 – 1827). Blake saw reason and imagination as two opposed faculties, and imagination is
liberating (he also equates the imagination to Jesus), whilst reason imprisons
us (reason and law he equated with Satan).
http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/worksinfocus/blake/imagin/cast_05.html
For Blake,
Note that in Blake’s print
See also: 'Imagining Other': William Blake.
6. Other recent writers on the nature of science and
scientific thinking:
6.1 Nature as ‘female’ and science as ‘male’ –
patriarchy and science:
A writer who questions how
‘reason’ has been (mis-)used in science, (and in economics and politics), is Brian Easlea… He
argues in Science and Sexual Oppression (1981) that the practice of science
(‘natural philosophy’ especially ‘mechanical philosophy’) has been seen as a
way for men to control nature – and that nature being seen as female indicates
that the new science and patriarchy went hand in hand:
-
- Locke, Halley, Hooke and
others (later Hume) use sexist language concerning nature and science: Isaac
Barrow,
- some of this originates in
Bacon, (p 84): the ‘experimental philosophy’ would inaugurate the ‘masculine
birth of time’ – man could ‘bind her [nature] to your service and make her your
slave’ ‘conquer her and subdue her, to shake her to her foundations’ – men
should turn their ‘united forces against the Nature of Things, to storm and
occupy her castles and strongholds’…
Men seem to have been
sexually insecure during this time, Easlea argues, and this is reflected in the
way they thought about science.
Roy Porter (reviewing Brian
Easlea 1982) says that Easlea is in the tradition of the Romantics, William
Blake, Lewis Mumford, Arthur Koestler, Herbert Marcuse, Theodore Roszak. Easlea
contextualises the mechanical philosophy, alongside the history of witches, in Witch- hunting, Magic and
the New Philosophy, 1980.
On magic: The Book of Magic:
from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, by Brian Copenhaver. Book review, by Rowan
Williams, New Statesman 18 Dec –
I would add that some
ecologists also look for a more ‘wholistic’
or organic way of understanding nature, and our place in it.
The problem is, says Porter,
that during the Enlightenment ‘the living and spiritual Ptolomaic-Aristotelian
cosmology was replaced by the mechanical philosophy, which saw the natural
world as essentially inert, dead… governed by regular laws (which were
ultimately divinely created).’
One approach to this issue is
adopted by those who oppose the ‘mechanistic use of reason’ associated with the
particular view of scientific method adopted by e.g. Malthus, Bacon,
6.3 others (in alphabetical order):
Appleyard, Bryan: The Brain is Wider than the Sky: on reductionism, and why simple
solutions don’t work in a complex world.
Reviewed Observer 20.11.11 by
Simon Ings: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/17/appleyard-brain-wider-sky-review?
Ings puts Appleyard’s argument that we are influenced by developments in IT to
think of ourselves and our brains as similar to computers – and in so doing, we
are over-simplifying ourselves, ‘hammering ourselves into reductive boxes. It
is wrong to think of the brain as analogous to a computer/complex system: if
mere computational power were all that the brain consisted of, then computers
would have consciousness and think, and so would the weather!!! The book is
very clear at explaining reductionism (alongside describing what an fMRI scan
does – i.e. it maps the brain as it functions, but analysis into small elements
does not explain how it all works!).
Appleyard’s review of ‘The Kingdom
of Speech’ by Tom Wolfe (
Julian Baggini,
in debate with Lawrence Kraus on
whether science can replace philosophy:
Baggini concedes that there
is only matter in the universe, but argues that our brains are so complex that
it is unlikely that science will ever fully understand them, also that while
empirical facts can help to inform moral decisions, ultimately we sort out many
of these without recourse simply to facts or logic. Krauss suggests that
science has helped sort out e.g. whether homosexuality is right or wrong (it
can be shown to be not harmful to evolution, and also prevalent among people
etc). He also argues that all ‘why’ questions are really ‘how’ questions, and
that we will never know if science can provide all the answers unless we keep
trying.
Further references to
Baggini: on ‘truth’ Imagining Other: new ways
of seeing and on cynicism: What is Imagining Other?
Bourke, Joanna:
What it means to be human: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/26/what-it-means-human-review
Derman, Emanuel: The limitations of science, and the paradox (from Schrodinger) of
modern/contemporary science: Emanuel
Derman, New Scientist 22 Oct 2011, author of Models. Behaving. Badly (Wiley/Freepress) and blogs at
bit.ly/knx12r : we look for laws of
nature – e.g.
Gabriel, Marcus: see also, for criticism of view that science is ultimate knowledge: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/30/why-world-does-not-exist-markus-gabriel-review
- Gabriel deals with epistemology, and ontology, drawing on post-Kantian ideas
e.g. Heidegger, Wittgenstein. Interested in Scepticism.
(philosophy.berkeley.edu)
Harris, Sam:
The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Moral Values, Sam Harris
(Transworld) – review by Giles Fraser says: Harrris dealt with ‘those with too
much faith’ in The End of Faith, now he has a go at those with too little, i.e.
moral relativism. Wants to reject view that science does facts à truth, and religion does meaning and values (which
must à relativistic respect)
– but he ends up (says Fraser) with ‘reheated utilitarianism’ with wellbeing as
the goal in place of pleasure. Doesn’t deal with weaknesses of utilitarianism, and
seems to want ‘world to be captured by a single philosophy.’
Kapp, Prof. R. O.: Science versus Materialism, – deals e.g. with the argument about angels (dancing
on the point of a pin) – in the context of definition of matter as occupying
space and being unable to exercise selection, guidance or control of activity
(= “discrimination”). Kapp says ‘Anything which discriminates cannot have
location.’ (Notes and Queries in Guardian 030512 (David Tompsett).
Lanier, Jaron,
2010: You Are Not a Gadget. Recommended by Ings in the review cited above as
being more philosophically sophisticated than Appleyard...
Reviews of Who Owns the
Future? By Jaron Lanier And Big Data
by V. Mayer-Schonberger and K. Cukler, 03.03.13 The Observer:
Lanier raises important
questions (though the style is difficult and it reads like a TED talk) e.g.
each new technology produces the potential for manipulating the way we run our
lives. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/mar/03/who-owns-future-jaron-lanier-review
Levi, Primo:
author of If This Is a Man (also published as Survival in
Maxwell, Nicholas: (emeritus reader in
philosophy of science at
Wikipedia entry seems useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Maxwell
(i) Maxwell wrote an article
in the Guardian (in ‘Response’ to a piece by George Monbiot, regretting the gap
between scientists and the public) 120310:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/12/philosopy-of-science-climate-change
Scientists need to explain
that the aim of science is not simply to ‘acquire knowledge of truth, [by
assessing] claims to knowledge with respect to evidence’ – since physicists
will not accept theories that are not unified – that is, ‘that attribute the
same laws to all the phenomena to which the theory in question applies’. This is to assume that there is some kind of underlying unity in nature…
They also need to be more
clear about values: the truth that is
sought needs to be important or of value – values implicit in the aims of
science need to be acknowledged so they can be tested, criticised, improved
(since they are ‘problematic’).
Finally, this ‘knowledge of
valuable truth is sought so that it may be used by people, ideally to enhance
the quality of human life’ – i.e. there is a humanitarian or political dimension.
For scientists to claim that
science is simply the pursuit of truth is to ‘seriously misrepresent its real,
problematic aims.’
(ii) My thoughts:
The article provoked for me
several thoughts about the nature and purpose of science: is there an
underlying unity in nature? (shades of Spinoza here… [yes, Wikipedia confirms
this!]) Is the author saying that scientists do - or that they should? - produce work if/because it
will be of value to human life-quality? Perhaps the problem is that, yes,
scientists produce knowledge for human use but they themselves (a) often opt
out of questioning the use to which it may be put, either by claiming they are
pursuing ‘pure’ science, or by saying ‘it’s not our problem’ when it comes to
the applications; (b) and of course when they do recognise the practical implications
they – naturally – claim it will be of benefit (whereas the public needs to be
able to question these claims).
(iii) A summary (source?) of:
"From Knowledge to Wisdom":
Maxwell argues that there is
an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about
a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of
academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a
better world. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of knowledge, as
at present, academia would devote itself to helping us solve our immense,
current global problems – climate change, war, poverty, population growth,
pollution of sea, earth and air, destruction of natural habitats and rapid
extinction of species, injustice, tyranny, proliferation of armaments,
conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear, depletion of natural resources.
The basic intellectual aim of inquiry would be to seek and promote wisdom –
wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and
others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else
besides.
(iv) Reviews of the above
article:
One very favourable review
at: http://www.wisdompage.com/MaxwellReview.doc.
Other favourable reviews: http://books.google.com/books/about/From_knowledge_to_wisdom.html?id=uUOdAQAACAAJ
- all of which make it clear
he is arguing about what science ‘should’ do, against its ‘empiricist’ slant at
present.
What Critics Said about the First Edition of "From Knowledge to
Wisdom":
“Maxwell is advocating nothing less than a revolution (based on reason, not
on religious or Marxist doctrine) in our intellectual goals and methods of
inquiry ... There are altogether too many symptoms of malaise in our
science-based society for Nicholas Maxwell's diagnosis to be ignored."
Professor Christopher Longuet-Higgins, Nature.
“a strong effort is needed if one is to stand back and clearly state the
objections to the whole enormous tangle of misconceptions which surround the
notion of science to-day. Maxwell has made that effort in this powerful,
profound and important book.” Dr. Mary Midgley, University Quarterly.
“The essential idea is really so simple, so transparently right ... It
is a profound book, refreshingly unpretentious, and deserves to be read,
refined and implemented.” Dr. Stewart Richards, Annals of Science.
“Maxwell's book is a major contribution to current work on the
intellectual status and social functions of science ... [It] comes as an
enormous breath of fresh air, for here is a philosopher of science with enough
backbone to offer root and branch criticism of scientific practices and to call
for their reform.” Dr. David Collingridge, Social Studies of Science.
"Maxwell has, I believe, written a very important book which will
resonate in the years to come. For those who are not inextricably and cynically
locked into the power and career structure of academia with its
government-industrial-military connections, this is a book to read, think
about, and act on." Dr. Brian Easlea, Journal of Applied Philosophy.
“This book is a provocative and sustained argument for a 'revolution', a
call for a 'sweeping, holistic change in the overall aims and methods of
institutionalized inquiry and education, from knowledge to wisdom' ... Maxwell
offers solid and convincing arguments for the exciting and important thesis
that rational research and debate among professionals concerning values and
their realization is both possible and ought to be undertaken.” Professor Jeff
Foss, Canadian Philosophical Review.
“Wisdom, as Maxwell's own experience shows, has been outlawed from the
western academic and intellectual system ... In such a climate, Maxwell's
effort to get a hearing on behalf of wisdom is indeed praiseworthy.” Dr.
Ziauddin Sardar, Inquiry.
(v) Extract from a letter from Maxwell (Guardian, date?) on the difficulty of
reconciling clashing aims and values:
‘we need a new concept of
rationality which recognises that when we have problematic or disputed aims,
ideals, or values we need to represent them in the form of a hierarchy, so that
they get less and less specific and substantial, and so less and less
problematic and likely to be disputed, as we go up the hierarchy…
[problematic aims etc can be
assessed, debated, and perhaps improved, in the light, in part, of experience,
and within this framework of a rational hierarchy of aims etc]
Such a hierarchical concept
of rationality, designed to help us improve problematic aims and values as we
live, ought to be built into village, national and international politics, into
industry, agriculture, finance, media, law, education and even science.’
Finally!!! On Maxwell: having
visited a number of sites here’s a comprehensive review of how far we maybe
have come in moving from knowledge to wisdom:
http://www.wisdompage.com/MaxwellinContext.html
- and towards the end of this is a section tying together the philosophies of
yoga, Montessori, Quakers, Krishnamurti, Gandhi and Steiner!!!
Carlo Rovelli:
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – seems to me to show that there are a number of
rival theories which don’t fit together and perhaps never will.
A brilliant piece on the
usefulness of philosophy today – especially in the light of the Brexit vote: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/23/philosophy-dead-brexit-carlo-rovelli
Sheldrake, Rupert: The Science Delusion: freeing the spirit of enquiry. Reviewed by Mary
Midgley, Saturday Guardian 28.01.12:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/27/science-delusion-rupert-sheldrake-review
We cannot use the old (17th
century) notion of matter as inert, dead stuff, when trying to understand such
mind-body topics as consciousness, the origins of life etc. Sheldrake has long
argued for a new paradigm (noting the use of ‘angles’ such as comparing humans
to the stars, to machines, and to computers...) and has an interesting idea
when he suggests that instead of laws of behaviour we should talk of habits.
Materialism has also turned into a kind of anti-Christian ideology, rather than
reflecting the true nature of science. Modern physics is dynamic for a start...
Intriguing that when Sheldrake challenged scientists to deal with his examples
of people knowing they are being stared at from behind, and dogs knowing their
owners are on their way home, Wolpert and Dawkins both refused to look at the
evidence. This, says Mary Midgley is a good example of the science delusion.
Talliss, Raymond: Aping Mankind http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/16/aping-mankind-raymond-tallis-review
- aims to ‘rescue atheism from the currently fashionable atheists’ such as John
Gray, Dawkins and Dennett... – they ‘mis-state, elide or conceal the absolute
strangeness of being human’. Broadly, these authors say we are no more than
computers. Tallis also rejects the religious view of what we are. He examines
the two meanings of ‘information’ – one where it is involved with meaning, and
the other (used to ‘explain’ ourselves – in my words) where it is digital bits
etc. Another process of reduction!! Science cannot explain ‘personhood’.
I am reminded of the notion
that ‘The map is not the territory’ taken from Alfred Korzybski, the father of
general semantics: we are limited in what we know by the structure of our
nervous system and by the structure of our languages. We do not have direct
knowledge of reality but only of ‘abstractions’ – and our language etc
(presumably including scientific accounts – especially when these involve
metaphors such as ‘the brain is a computer’) may mislead us...
Another book by Tallis, ‘In
Defence of Wonder’ is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/06/defence-wonder-raymond-tallis-review?INTCMP=SRCH
A recent Guardian article by
Tallis, with which I whole-heartedly agree:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/physics-philosophy-quantum-relativity-einstein?INTCMP=SRCH
– but reading the comments leads me to wonder why discussion of the points
Tallis makes cannot proceed without abuse... It does not claim that philosophy
can answer every question or replace science, nor does it say that science is
bunk. My interpretation of Tallis is that he believes we need a new paradigm,
since science cannot explain certain fundamental features of our experience,
and even some aspects of science seem to be inexplicable.
Book of essays: The Mystery
of Being Human: God, Freedom and the NHS. Calls himself a secular humanist, and
says that we cannot ignore religious feeling ‘Any attempt to do justice to our
humanity must take into account religious beliefs: to dismiss something
profound and constant in our humanity would be a strange attitude for a
humanist.’ Includes an attack on politicians who want to privatise the NHS>
7. References (other than the recommended texts for
the
Copenhaver, Brian: The Book
of Magic: from Antiquity to the Enlightenment.
Easlea, Brian:
Science and Sexual Repression, Weidenfeld & Nicholson
1981.
Liberation and the Aims of Science, Sussex University
Press 1980 (first published 1973).
Witch-hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy, Harvester
Press 1980.
Obituary for Brian Easlea
(1936 – Nov 2012) in the Guardian is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2013/jan/15/brian-easlea-obituary
Porter, Roy: Flesh in the Age
of Reason, (how the Enlightenment transformed the way we see our bodies and
souls) 2002 is reviewed at: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/bookreviews/r/porter-2.html
Russell, B. (1946): History
of Western Philosophy, Unwin.
Thomas, Keith: Religion and
the Decline of Magic, 1983
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/apr/13/newtown-last-magician-review
(Wollaston: brief review of
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