2.7 Summary and Conclusions

From Atomism to Action at a Distance

“The examination of the steps by which our ancestors acquired our intellectual estate may make us acquainted with our expectations as well as our possessions ;– may not only remind us of what we have, but may teach us how to improve and increase our store,” observed the English philosopher and historian of science, William Whewell (1794–1866) [[i]].

Aristotelian physics (in the exact literal sense!) demonstrates vividly how seriously flawed ideas can nevertheless underpin a remarkably successful theory: the Ptolemaic or geocentric model of the solar system. This sophisticated theory was a precursor of fundamental ideas still at the root of science and engineering today, particularly the notion that we can break down a complex problem, like the motion of the planets, into a collection of simpler parts, like the circular epicycles and deferents used to explain this motion.

We saw in Chapter 1 how Eratosthenes’ shadow observations could be explained by a spherical Earth and a distant Sun, or by a flat Earth and a nearby Sun. The geocentric and heliocentric theories similarly illustrate how two profoundly different models can nevertheless serve to explain the same phenomenon. Scientists must not take the earlier theory as privileged. They must not regard the novel hypothesis as an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. Instead, the wise scientist embraces as many models as are available to explain the phenomena, uses them according to their explanatory power, and allows the preponderance of evidence to dictate which is taken to be reality.

A student of the history of science quickly observes how the models and dogmas of any given day inevitably yield to newer, better models and explanations under the weight of our expanding knowledge of nature. Or even revert to older, previously discarded models! It would be an extraordinary claim indeed to assert that today’s dogmas are uniquely privileged to be the ultimate and unimpeachable truths.

Occult belief systems operated in parallel with science, and leading scientists also flirted with alchemy and astrology. Roger Bacon, Tycho Brahe, Francis Bacon, and Kepler all dabbled in astrology [[ii]]. Newton, Boyle, and Locke shared a secret correspondence on alchemy, much of which has now been lost. [[iii]]. And yet, the medieval monks and scholars not only preserved, but also expanded upon Aristotle’s foundation to make Newtonian physics possible. However much the medieval Schoolmen may have subverted Aristotle into useless Platonic exercises in syllogism and deduction, Whewell points out that “Aristotle asserts, as distinctly as words can express, that all knowledge must depend on observation, and that science must be collected from facts by induction” [[iv]]. A thorough study of medieval physics concluded that “…much of [Galileo’s] path had been prepared for him by the Aristotelian scholastic tradition against which he revolted” [[v]].

Some have identified Francis Bacon as the Father of Science, but for all his attempts to codify the process of scientific inquiry, he did poorly when it came to perceiving the scientific progress taking place in his own time.

It is a commonplace about Bacon that he was remarkably blind to the important scientific work that was going on in his own time. To start with things near at hand, he ignored the brilliant work of his own doctor, William Harvey, on the circulation of the blood. By interpreting the crucial aspect of human vitality in hydraulic terms as a pumping system, Harvey prepared the way for another of Bacon’s associates, Thomas Hobbes, to develop an account of man as a wholly natural object. Bacon dismissed another instance of major scientific advance in his own immediate environment, Gilbert’s theory of magnetism, as a kind of occultist fantasy. Going further afield, he disdained Copernicus and ignored Kepler and Galileo [[vi]].

However, the learned Lord Chancellor did anticipate the modern research institution and was influential not only in the 1660 founding of the Royal Society, but also in the vision of science as a tool for achieving power and dominion over nature. In that, he was a Founding Father of Scientism, not science.

Brahe’s observations and the investigations of Galileo and Kepler demonstrated that motion was more complex than mere Aristotelian lines and circles. Painstaking measurement and experiment demonstrated that a geometric description of motion involves conic sections: parabolas, ellipses, and hyperbolas. Descartes chose a different path – deducing the nature of reality from his preconceptions. Many of his conclusions were wrong, and even those he got right were not necessarily for correct reasons. In contrast, Newton took the experimental data and the conclusions of Galileo and Kepler and developed not only the theory of Universal Gravitation, but also the basic principles of physics and mechanics. In doing so, he defied the Baconian model of collective, institutionalized science and demonstrated the power of a single genius, working largely in isolation, to rework the foundations of human understanding.

Newton’s ideas took time to be accepted and even more time for their implications to be realized. Newton’s successors worked out the details of what came to be known as Newtonian physics. In so doing, they subverted and undermined Newton’s vision. Newton scrupulously refused to offer theories in the absence of evidence. His successors ascribed to Newton a world view in which reality comprises a cloud of particles interacting with each other through mathematical laws of attraction and repulsion, particles that acted at a distance with no intermediary.

This is the starting point for the next chapter’s discussion. We’ve seen how deductive reasoning is a top-down approach, starting from some axioms, paradigms, or theories. Then through a process of deduction, one draws a conclusion about the results of an experiment or observation. If the starting axioms are correct and the deductive argument is valid, then the conclusion will be correct. If the conclusion does not align with observation or experiment, then there is a flaw in the starting axioms, or in the deductive process, or both.

Inductive reasoning is a bottom-up approach, starting with observations or experimental data. Then through a process of induction, one identifies generalizations consistent with the data. Whewell calls generalizations “transitions from particular truths to others of a wider extent, in which the former are included” [[vii]]. The result is a general principle, axiom, paradigm, or theory that explains not only the original data, but also the results of similar experiments.

Figure 2.31: Inductive and deductive reasoning (after [[viii]]).

The inductive, Aristotelian approach of inductive reason grounded in empirical evidence led to new discoveries and intellectual breakthroughs. The deductive, Platonic approach of “pure” reason refined fundamental principles further, yielding the hidden implications and new applications of those principles. Properly understood, inductive and deductive reasoning work together as co-equal aspects of a mutually reinforcing process of scientific discovery as shown in Figure 2.31. But when the Platonist becomes divorced from reality, his deductions easily slip “insensibly into sheer imagination,” as A. Rupert Hall pointed out in the case of Descartes.

The importance of this distinction between Aristotelian induction and Platonic deduction becomes clear when considering the political implications. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed King James II, upending the traditional divine right of kings. Newton’s Aristotelian example inspired John Locke to justify the usurpation by an appeal to an empirically derived social contract which in turn led to the American experiment.

The fashion in France was toward Platonism and the enshrinement of reason as the new state religion. They took the latest English intellectual trends, severed them from their empirical grounding and took them to extremes. Louis XV (1710–1774) let Scottish economist John Law (1671–1729) run amok, creating both the world’s first central bank and the “Mississippi Bubble,” one of the largest speculative financial bubbles and collapses in history [[ix]]. “…[T]ake Diderot (1713–1784) and D’Alembert (1717–1783), whose rave review of Bacon’s contribution placed ‘l’immortel Chancelier d’Angleterre’ first of all those who illuminated their contemporaries and freed them from superstition” [[x]]. Bacon might not have appreciated being the Father of Scientism and inspiring the overthrow of faith with “reason,” if he were sincere when he declared “a little Philosophy inclineth Mans mind to Atheisme ; But depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion’’ [[xi]]. As savvy, subtle, and multi-layered as he was, no firm conclusion as to his real opinions may be drawn. The handmaiden of Bacon’s policy of secrecy is mendacity. Whatever Bacon’s role might have been, the French intellectual tradition slid that nation into the savagery of the French Revolution.

This Aristotelian-Platonic dualism echoes throughout human history and our broader intellectual traditions. Which is primary? Reality or consciousness? The observed or the observer? And how do they work together? The importance of a well-grounded metaphysics and an epistemology that balances induction and deduction shines forth in these discussions, as does the danger of sloppy thinking.

Just as science oscillates between an Aristotelian phase in which new concepts are established by induction and a Platonic phase in which the implications of those ideas are established by deduction, so also does science oscillate between atomic and plenary viewpoints. Both perspectives date back to the thinkers of ancient Greece. Aristotle’s stature was such that his views on the plenum dominated thinking through the time of Descartes and beyond. Discoveries in pneumatics and the creation of atmospheric vacuums by Galileo, Torricelli, Pascal, von Guericke, Hooke, Boyle, and others spurred renewed thinking in terms of atoms and void.

As Newton’s successors developed and extended upon his ideas, they reinterpreted Newton’s results as an abstract mathematical system describing mathematical point particles acting at a distance. This would be the perspective taken as a starting point by the pioneers in mathematical electromagnetic physics.

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References

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[i] Whewell, William, History of the Inductive Sciences, From the Earliest to the Present Time, 3^rd ed. vol. 1 of 3, London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1857, p. 4.

[ii] Whewell, William, History of the Inductive Sciences, From the Earliest to the Present Time, 3^rd ed. vol. 1 of 3, London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1857, p. 231.

[iii] Westfall, Richard, The Life of Newton, Cambridge: University Press, 1993, pp. 200-201.

[iv] Whewell, William, History of the Inductive Sciences, From the Earliest to the Present Time, 3^rd ed. vol. 1 of 3, London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1857, p. 342.

[v] Moody, Ernest A., The medieval science of weights (scientia de ponderibus) : treatises ascribed to Euclid, Archimedes, Thabit ibn Qurra, Jordanus de Nemore, and Blasius of Parma, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952, p. 8.

[vi] Quinton, Anthony, Francis Bacon, New York: Hill and Wang, 1980, p. 79.

[vii] Whewell, William, History of the Inductive Sciences, From the Earliest to the Present Time, 3^rd ed. vol. 1 of 3, London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1857, p. 9.

[viii] Karaman, Bayazit. (2015). MODELING THE ANTIPODAL CONNECTIVITY STRUCTURE OF NEURAL COMMUNITIES (Thesis). 10.13140/RG.2.1.2941.2883.

[ix] Mackay, Charles, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1841; New York: Crown Publishers, 1980, pp. 1-45.

[x] Rees, Graham, “Reflections on the Reputation of Francis Bacon’s Philosophy,” Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 3/4, 2002, pp. 379-394.

[xi] Rees, Graham, “Reflections on the Reputation of Francis Bacon’s Philosophy,” Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 3/4, 2002, pp. 379-394.