The Nature of Physical Existence

Ivor Leclerc

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317852971
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This is Volume II of six in a collection on Epistemology. Originally published in 1972, the central concern of this book is the understanding of the nature of the universe. Its field is thus that which until the eighteenth century had been known as philosophia naturalis, the philosophy of nature. The aim of the book is to elucidate and examine the fundamental concepts in terms of which the universe is understood.

1
Introduction

That the great developments in physical science which began towards the end of the nineteenth century have advanced us into a new era of thought is generally accepted. That this has involved a transformation of some fundamental concepts is also acknowledged. But the precise nature and extent of the changes in thought is still very much in dispute. An adequate comprehension is still very far from having been achieved.

One reason for this, and a most significant one, is the extent to which the fundamental scheme of concepts of the antecedent epoch still has its grip on present-day thought. Our situation is analogous to that which pertained at the beginning of the modern era when, for instance, the Aristotelian concept of substantial form continued as a basic presupposition well into the seventeenth century.

A manifestation of the hold of the scheme of the post-Newtonian epoch on the thought of the present is to be seen in regard to the concept of 'space' - one of the concepts most profoundly affected by the twentieth-century advances. By a long and complex process — which we shall subsequently investigate in some detail — extending from the sixteenth through into the eighteenth century, the concept of 'space' came to be developed as that of one of the fundamental factors in the constitution of the universe. It was the concept of an ultimate kind of existent, not reducible to any of the other fundamental factors, namely matter, time, and motion. Euclidean geometry, it came to be conceived, was the science of space, that is, the science which had space as its object.

By the nineteenth century this concept had become so completely accepted - with the entire cosmological scheme of which it was part - that the fact of its having been the product of an intricate and peculiar process of development was forgotten or not appreciated at all. It had, on the contrary, come to be assumed as an ultimate and generic concept, indispensable and necessary to the understanding of the universe. All earlier thought was accordingly supposed to have possessed the concept, though usually in much less satisfactory forms. Because by that time the modern concept of 'space' had come to have the status of a tacit presupposition, with the seeming obviousness of the self-evident, nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars have been interpreting the chaos of Hesiod and the early Greeks, the chōra of Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's topos, the kenon of Democritus, the vacuum of Lucretius and the sixteenth-century thinkers, all as 'space' in the modern sense. This sense has so completely become a presupposition that it is extremely seldom appreciated that the very word spatium, or 'space', in pre-eighteenth-century thought had a significantly different connotation from that of the modern 'space' (or der Raum, l'espace, etc.).

Not only in general scholarship but in physical science too this presupposition continues its hold. Thus, although following Minkowski and Einstein, space has come to be held to be relative and not absolute, and has been brought into close relation with time in a 'four-dimensional continuum', the presupposition continues that it is itself some kind of ultimate existent. The question has to be faced, however, whether the twentieth-century physical theories do not entail the complete abandonment of that presupposition of some kind of ultimate existent which is 'space'. It is necessary to inquire whether this concept, instead of being the ultimate and generic notion which it is presupposed to be, is not in fact one which is special and peculiar to the cosmological scheme of the past couple of centuries, the scheme which is in this century in the process of supersession.

A similar continuation as tacit presuppositions of the antecedent scheme also applies with regard to the concepts of 'time' and 'motion'. There has come to be an appreciation in some degree of the special character of the concept of 'matter' in the theory of the last couple of centuries, but even this realization is still relatively partial, precisely because of the extent to which the presuppositions of the antecedent doctrine continue their effective sway over this concept too.

In this context it is particularly instructive to look at that earlier period of fundamental change. The thought of the early seventeenth century provides a singularly good exemplification not only of such concepts, belonging to a scheme in the process of supersession, being carried over as presuppositions, but also of the extent to which this carrying over is obstructive to advancement. From this point of view the philosophical endeavour of the seventeenth century can be seen as in one most important aspect a clarifying of fundamental concepts, determining their precise status and making clear their implications.

A very weighty factor enabling the achievement of that clarification was that the prevailing historical circumstances compelled the Aristotelian analyses to be the starting point of the new theories being developed. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries medieval Aristotelianism was still dominant, indeed even enforced by the Church and universities, and opposition was not lightly tolerated. In consequence, it was not sufficient for the proponents of the new theories merely to put forward their views and positions; these had to be established in a grim struggle with the Aristotelian positions all along the line. A good knowledge of the Aristotelian texts was thus requisite, and out of this detailed, point-by-point confrontation of the new theories with the respective Aristotelian positions came a degree of understanding of what basically was at issue which could not otherwise have been possible. In this way it began to become clear to thinkers towards the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century that, for example, 'matter' in the new theories which were then developing was in fact conceived fundamentally differently from what it was in the Aristotelian doctrine, and that this entailed a very different status for 'form'. Only when the special meaning of the concept of matter in the context of the Aristotelian doctrine came to be appreciated was it possible to be clear about what it meant in the new thought, and consequently that by this new conception the inherence of qualities in matter was excluded.

Evidently in this respect the historical situation in the twentieth century is very different from that in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The contemporary absence of an imposed orthodoxy is not the important factor in this difference, however. Rather, this factor is that, whereas in the antecedent period of fundamental change the scientific and philosophical concerns were closely associated, in the present century we are suffering the consequences of the separation of science and philosophy which followed upon the triumph of Newtonian physics in the eighteenth century. The result has been that, compared with the earlier period, there has so far been relatively scant philosophical preoccupation with and penetration into the developments which have occurred. The most serious deficiency is not the comparatively small number of interested philosophers so much as the lack of an adequate philosophical framework in terms of which to operate.

After Kant the 'philosophy of nature' virtually ceased being a field of philosophical concern and cultivation. The province of 'nature' had been handed over wholly to 'natural science'. This meant that the concept of 'nature' involved in the then current science was accepted without being subjected to philosophical scrutiny, the result being that in due course that concept became embedded in thought as a tacit presupposition - it is symptomatic that there gradually came about a loss of awareness that the term 'nature' had any particular significance at all, so that the adjective could be dropped, leaving only 'science'. As a presupposition, however, the eighteenth-century concept of nature has continued effective down to the present day, not only in scientific thinking but also in most philosophical attempts to interpret the scientific developments of the twentieth century - and these attempts consequently have been able to achieve little more than a somewhat more general formulation of the scientific theories. But there cannot be significant philosophical assessment without an exposure of presuppositions; for such an assessment involves being clear about wherein exactly fundamental differences from antecedent theories consist, and these differences are precisely what are obscured by tacit presuppositions.

By their very nature presuppositions are not easily detectable. One of the intrinsic difficulties is to know what to look for. In the present time this difficulty is vastly augmented by that feature of the twentieth-century situation indicated above. Because the fundamental concepts which are at issue have for so long ceased being objects of explicit philosophical concern and inquiry, the problem of how to enter upon and engage in this inquiry is singularly acute. This problem did not face the earlier period of change, because there was then a live tradition, proceeding from the Greeks, of concern with the relevant issues and problems. Our peculiar difficulty stems from the interruption of that tradition, for this has meant the loss of philosophical grasp and comprehension of what fundamentally is at issue, of the essential and ultimate problems. One significant manifestation of this loss is the contemporary lack of awareness of the carry-over of ideas as presuppositions. We are thus, in the present historical context, in a uniquely difficult position with regard to the inquiry into the fundamental concepts.

There is one way — perhaps it is the only one — to resolve this difficulty. This is by a reference back to the past. In the first instance, in order to achieve our aim of a proper comprehension of the contemporary developments, it is necessary to have an appropriate understanding of the immediately antecedent epoch. For to see the present in the perspective of that out of which it arose is the most effective means of gaining the contrast requisite for clear comprehension. But it is precisely here, in respect of the fundamental concepts, that we run up against our peculiar difficulty. For the carrying over of ideas as presuppositions obstructs that effort at distinction. It prevents our being able to discriminate clearly between what is truly generic and what is specific to the particular scheme.

To overcome this difficulty we need to go back further and study that antecedent epoch in its origins and development. This means that we need to concentrate particularly on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The point of special relevance in this is not so much that this was the formative time in which modern science and philosophy arose, but rather that at that period the scientific and philosophical concerns were closely associated, and there was consequently a very considerable philosophical comprehension of the ultimate problems and issues. This period is thus of quite crucial significance for us in the present century.

To derive what we most need from the study of this period, particular attention is necessary to the earlier struggles with the revelant issues. It is in these struggles, in which the wrestling with the rejected Aristotelian positions was most explicit, that the fundamental problems and issues at stake came most clearly to the fore. Moreover, it was out of these earlier struggles that the new science and philosophy arose, and it was the issues and problems with which those struggles were concerned that determined the shape of the subsequent scientific and philosophical development. When we examine the thought of this earlier period it becomes evident that the central issues which exercised thinkers, those which were crucial in the emergence of the new science and philosophy, were not centred on mechanics — the science to which Kepler and Galileo made the epoch-making contributions. The work of the latter in fact belonged to a later phase, which presupposed the developments with which I am now concerned.

A survey of the thinkers of the earlier period who were in the forefront of the new development brings out that prominent among them were medical men such as Paracelsus (1473—1541), Fracastoro (1483-1553), Cardano (1501-1576), Scaliger (1484-1558), William Gilbert (1540-1603), Daniel Sennert (1572-1631), and Sebastian Basso.¹ This is indeed not surprising, for already in the Middle Ages the province of 'nature' had come to be the particular preserve of the medical men - so much so that already the word physicus had come to have the meaning of 'medical practitioner', whence 'physician' in English. For it was important to the treatment of illness that the composition of the physical world be understood as well as the constitution of the body. Only on the basis of such an understanding was it passible to relate food and drugs to the problem of health. It is thus readily appreciable that the theory of the elements and the theory of chemical combination should take an eminent place among their concerns. The theory of the elements was also prominent in the thought of all the other thinkers of that period who contributed significantly to the rise of modern science and philosophy, men such as Telesio (1508-1588), Patrizzi (1529-1597), Bruno (1548-1600), Campanella (1568-1639), Lubin (1565-1631), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), and David Gorlaeus (1592—1620).

For what was emerging in the thought of all these thinkers was a conception of 'nature' radically different from that which had prevailed since the time of the Greeks. And in the development of this new conception the theory of the elements and the theory of chemical combination played a singularly crucial part, as was later most clearly brought out in the important book Philosophia naturalis (1621) by Dr Sebastian Basso, the leading thinker among the group of medical men and other intellectuals in Paris during the second decade of the seventeenth century, whose vigorous concern with the new anti-Aristotelian theories laid the basis for the subsequent rapid advance by the Cartesians. There can be little doubt about the influence of Basso's book on the contemporary and later French thinkers such as Descartes, Gassendi, de Claves, Berigard, Magnenus, Mersenne, as well as others such as Jungius, Conring, Campanella, Sperling, and Leibniz beyond France.²

Fundamental to the new conception of nature was a new conception of matter. It was the outcome in the early seventeenth century of a gradual change, slowly beginning already in the late thirteenth century, from the concept of matter as the Aristotelian correlative of form to that of a self-subsistent actuality. It was in respect of this change in the concept of matter that the seventeenth-century concern with the theory of the elements and the theory of chemical combination played so decisive a role, for it was the scientific considerations which finally determined the acceptance of the new philosophical conception of matter which was so basically divergent from the Aristotelian.

In this new philosophical theory, matter was not only self-subsistent but was identified with the physical as such: the ultimate physical existent was 'material substance'. The subsequent philosophical thought of the seventeenth century was in its fundamental aspect the struggle with the implications of this new conception. Many of its most important and most radical implications were already clearly seen by Basso, for example, that matter as such is devoid of all qualitative form - which had consequently to be relegated to the mind of the perceiver. Another was that the Aristotelian plurality of kinds of motion was excluded; the only motion possible was change of place. The one respect in which Basso's insight was deficient was that he failed to see matter in a quantitative mathematical aspect. This was the great contribution of Galileo, who therewith founded the modern science of mechanics. But this science, far from settling a major philosophical issue, made it all the more acute - the issue namely of the relation of the physical and the mathematical.

For during the sixteenth century it was becoming increasingly clear to thinkers that the rejection of the Aristotelian conception of matter and of physical substance entailed the necessity of a reassessment of the nature and status of the mathematical. Many thinkers dealt with this issue, and Bruno's contribution was one of the most significant and influential. Consequently by the time of the publication of Galileo's scientific results there was a considerable awareness of the question of the identification of the mathematical and the physical which seemed to be the implication of Galileo's work. Philosophical thought had therefore to turn attention to this issue as one of great urgency. The important philosophies of the seventeenth century, from Descartes and Gassendi through Leibniz and Newton and on to Kant in the eighteenth century, are to be seen as in a most fundamental aspect the attempt to resolve that issue of the relation of the physical and the mathematical.

During the sixteenth century it had also been clear that this whole issue was intimately bound up with a large number of related problems which Aristotle had raised and regarding which his solutions had been largely determinative of subsequent thought. There was the problem of divisibility and indivisibility, rendered acute by the recurring interest of sixteenth-century thinkers in the atomistic theory. There was the problem of continuity and discontinuity, also involved in the atomistic theory. There was the problem of infinity and finitude.

The reason why the thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were convinced that they were able to find a solution to these issues different from that of Aristotle was that by their time a vital new factor had entered the scene. This was a conception of infinity fundamentally different from that which had been maintained by Aristotle and all thinkers down into the fifteenth century. It is this change in the concept of infinity which constitutes the ultimate foundation upon which the entire edifice of modern science and philosophy has been raised. It is this which lies at the basis of that profound change in man's entire conception of the universe which is so fundamental to the modern era, distinguishing it from all previous ages, the change which Alexandre Koyré has so aptly epitomized in the title of his important book, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe.³

Koyré was certainly correct in seeing that the beginning of that enormous change in man's thought has to be traced back to Nicolaus of Gusa in the first half of the fifteenth century, and therefore that a grasp of the philosophy of Nicolaus Cusanus is essential to the comprehension of the subsequent developments. But I do not think that even Koyré appreciated sufficiently the extent to which Cusanus' concept of infinity was radically new. This concept, which the modern era has inherited from Cusanus, has come so much to be accepted as an ultimate presupposition that it is easy to read back the modern connotation of the term into earlier thought. It seems to me of the first importance for the understanding of modern thought to realize that until the fourteenth century the word 'infinite' (or 'infinity') had a profoundly different connotation from that which it came to have in the seventeenth century and subse...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• PART I THE CONCEPT OF THE INFINITE
• PART II THE CONCEPT OF THE PHYSICAL
• PART III THE MODERN CONCEPT OF NATURE
• PART IV PROLEGOMENA TO A NEW CONCEPT OF NATURE
• INDEX