Pinker on Dignity: (see esp. pp. 17-180)
1. Constant confusion of “aesthetic” and “moral”
judgments: vestiges of “logical positivism” and “emotivism”
2. Religion as a threat to freedom.
3. Not “dignity,” but
“autonomy.” What is the difference between
using one term vs. using the other? (Is
“autonomy” enough?)
4. Brave New World: Is there
any truth in literature?
5. The promise of progress
(dystopias never materialize).
The Origins of the Scientific Method:
Back to Galileo
* NB: The Scientific Revolution
and the Scientific Method are both significant and important development in the
history of ideas. Our question is not
whether it was good – to the extent that it gets us to the truth, it is good. But if Francis Bacon is right, and “knowledge
is power,” and if we know that power can be used either for good or for evil,
then the Scientific Method would be, like any other power in the hands of human
beings, a potential source of both great good as well as great harm.
Put
that aside for the moment. Our question
is not whether the Scientific Method is good.
Let’s assume for the moment that it is
good. Our question right now is whether
there are certain unresolved questions about the nature of the scientific
enterprise that can be discovered at the very origins of the Scientific
Method.
Key
questions:
*
What is science? What makes something
“science”? What distinguishes “science”
from what is not science? (The fact that it is done by “scientists”? The fact that it is done in
a laboratory? The
fact that it uses mathematics?)
*
What is the proper relationship between “science” and the other
disciplines? (Or is
there only “science” (knowledge) and only one way to get “science”?)
1. Letter to Christina:
(a)
The Book of Nature: Does it require interpretation?
(b) Does the
Book of Nature: Does it “lie open to our eyes”?
What is involved in “observation” and “deduction”?
2. The Assayer:
(a)
Understanding the language of the universe: mathematics
(b)
On the difference between primary and
secondary qualities
3. Galileo and Experiments
(a)
Galileo on William Gilbert (1544-1603), discoverer of the relationship between
magnetism and electricity: not enough mathematics
(b)
Experiments: How does one move from particular observation to general (let
alone universal) conclusions?
The Origins of the Scientific Method: Francis Bacon
1. Idols of the Mind
(a)
Idols of the Tribe
(b)
Idols of the Cave
(c)
Idols of the Marketplace
(d)
Idols of the Theater
2. Induction
(a)
How does one move from particular observation to general (let alone universal) conclusions?
(b)
Did Bacon underestimate the role of imagination and hypothesis in the
production of new scientific knowledge?
(Is observation enough? Or does
something guide observation?)
The Scientific Revolution: Contested Territory
1. The New Scientific Method:
(a)
studying small, discrete bits of nature (observation,
data) in a controlled setting, isolating them from the larger environment (Are
they still the same? Is
understanding the parts the same as understanding the whole? Does looking at a thing change the thing?)
(b)
Doing science like a Lord Chancellor: torturing nature to give up its secrets.
(c)
Knowledge is power – Why study Nature?
i) To contemplate and appreciate the beauty and glory of
God’s handiwork?
ii)
So as to bring the order of society in conformity with the order of society?
iii)
To do things with Nature. To be able to predict it and control it.
2. Mathematics as the Language
of Natural Philosophy
(a)
The question of “substance” and “essence”?
i. What tells you something “essentially” important about a
thing? Its weight? Its position? Its color? “What is
it?” (I don’t know, but there are two of
them, and they’re moving away from each other.)
ii.
Again, what is it? (It has an atomic weight of 6, it doesn’t
react naturally with water, it does react with oxygen, it has a crystalline
structure in certain states, it is brown. Does that tell us what it is, or merely
describe, mathematically, its properties?
Or is describing its properties all that we can hope for?
iii.
How about in the case of human beings?
What is it? It is a soft,
fleshy-colored (?) biped with two arms, two eyes, two nostrils, mammal, etc. Does that define you? Does that define a what “person” is?
(Do you understand now why we have you study metaphysics? Why logic and
definitions without metaphysics can lead to some real problems?
(b)
Mathematicizing Nature:
i. Looking for certainty through mathematics and measurement
rather than analysis of cause. Or
rather, the math is the cause.
ii.
So, for example, what is gravity? Ultimately, just a mathematical formula (the problems of “motion at
a distance.”) How is “the law of
gravity” derived? From
observation? Really?
iii.
“Everything from the trajectory of a cannonball to the shape of a leaf can be
turned into a mathematical expression.”
Can it? How about the course of
history? Or the
behavior of human beings? Or the nature of love?
(c)
Mathematics and Mechanism: Take Nature, quantify it,
figure out the math, apply it back to Nature.
Result: Nature looks like a machine: a thing made up of triangles,
rectangles, and squares, interacting at various rates and angles.
3. Potential Problems?:
(a)
Where is the perfect “triangle”? In our mind, not in nature.
(b)
Triangles in the world – abstraction to: perfect triangle – work Pythagorean theorem – apply to the real world (engineering and
architecture). But does most of the
world work that way? (On paper, that was
supposed to work!)
(c)Financial
crisis: Are there problems with
abstracting too far from reality? (As in “derivatives”?)
(d)
Management models: Are there problems with abstract “ideas” or “theories” that
people then try to force onto reality?
(On paper, that was supposed to work!
Everything was “perfect,” except for the people! If only they had worked like they were
supposed to – that is, in accord with the laws of science or economics or
politics.)
(e)
Even architecture: Buildings built for human beings vs. those that “protect the
purity of
geometrical form.” (Ever try to sit in a Modernist chair?)
(f)
Some things operate with the efficiency of a machine. But is more of reality subject to mere probability? When there are a range of possibilities, how to decide?
“The concept of probability was
not well accepted in physics, however, where
4.
(a)
Note the difference from Cicero, and even Kepler:
i. It’s not a question anymore of humankind imitating the
order of Nature.
ii.
Rather, human beings must learn the order of Nature in order to be able to predict
and control it for their own ends.
(b)
We are no longer thought to be part of Nature’s telos.
i. We have forsaken trying to discern that: No formal
or final causality.
ii.
Whatever the pros and cons of refraining from asking such questions in science,
what happens when we no longer ask, “What is the essence of being human?”
What is the intrinsic telos of human life?
c)
Rather, Nature is made subject to human will.
i. It needs to be understood in order to be made subject to
our will.
ii.
To what is our will subjected? Usually,
nothing other than our own will.
5. Note the increasing alienation from the world:
(a)
The world is not as it seems. The
“truth” about the world is further and further from the normal experiences and
observations of people. The “truth”
about the world can only be discerned by “experts.” Not only is the sun not moving, but heat
isn’t really “out there,” and red isn’t really red. “Heat” and “red” are only in our minds.)
(b)
Either it is controlling us (in all sorts of unseen ways, by all of its “laws”
to which we are subject), or we are going to learn its “laws” and control
it. Who will win the struggle of
power? Cf. Richard Rorty:
“The last tyranny” to overcome is the tyranny of the correspondence theory of
truth – of objectivism. There is no
intrinsic truth “out there.”
(c)
Note: In the Romantic response to Enlightenment “rationality,” the “sublime”
was thought to be embodied in the raw, destructive, uncontrollable power of Nature. Thus, the irony of the
sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic.
And then there was the “unsinkable” Molly Brown. (Human technology vs. the
human spirit. Cf. also the movie Gattica: Are we
going to be subject to the control of Nature?
Or can the human spirit overcome?).
(d)
Science vs. the Humanities: two very different realms (causal vs. free):
humanity on one side, Nature on the other
i. Mary
Shelly’s Frankenstein on the attempt
to control Nature and make it subject to human will (dystopias that never
materialize?)
ii.
Does literature tell us anything true anyway?
About the nature of the world? Or even about the nature of the human
person? (True, it may not tell us about
the atomic structure of carbon and oxygen.
But are those the only “true” things about the world?)
iii.
What would a study of man-and-nature as an integrated whole look like? We study “humanity” on one side of the
university; “nature” on the other. What
would a study of man-in-nature be like?
Is it even possible? Nature is
“out there.” Our humanity is “in
here.” They are completely different
realms, it would seem. It seems we free
human beings are necessarily going to be in conflict with law-driven Nature.
iv.
We want to be free make the world
over in our own image, according to our own will. But again, what binds or
guides our will? Not Nature,
obviously. Then what? Not authority or tradition, obviously. Not what your mother and father told you,
obviously. You are supposed to think for yourself. Not God, obviously. He’s just a big cosmic “daddy,” not
fundamentally different from your daddy.
You’re supposed to think for yourself.
So what? Reason? But reason merely gets us “facts” about the
world. It involves a process of
mathematical abstraction and calculation.
It doesn’t give us guidance about what we ought or ought not to do.
v.
When you are “re-making the world” (including re-casting human nature), what
guides you as creator? Nature is putty
in your hands. Tradition, authority, and
God are tyrants to be rejected. Reason is
instrumental to your will (like mathematics or engineering). It tells me how, not whether to or why not.
So when I am god, everything else in the universe (including other
people) become either (A) a threat to my power, or (B)
“things” to be manipulated to achieve my “autonomous” will. (Using the word “autonomous” makes it clear
that my will is not subject to or integrated with anyone else’s. On this view, I am not essentially “social”
or “communal.” I am essentially individual.)
6. Romano Guardini
on Nature, Person, Culture:
(R48): “For medieval man nature was the creation of
God.... For modern man both nature and
classicism became means for severing existence from Revelation. Revelation had become empty of meaning and
hostile to life. [Why? The wars of religion and arguments over the interpretation of
Scripture.]
“Although
man is intrinsically bound to nature in both body and spirit [is he? that is precisely what is in question], as soon as he
disposes of nature by coming to known nature he rises out of his natural milieu.
He then places nature opposite himself as something completely “other.”
[thus, “alienation”]
In the process of separating himself from nature, modern man underwent
that second experience crucial for understanding the import of modern
life. He underwent the experience of
subjectivity.
“The
modern concept of the subjective is
as foreign to the medieval consciousness as is that of nature. Seeing nature as the sum, the ordering, and
the unity of all things, medieval man could not conceive of nature as an
autonomous All. Nature was the Work of
the Sovereign God. Man was “the
subject,” being of the order of nature; he was first of all the creature of God
and the steward of His will. [He is “subject to” the laws of Nature and of
Nature’s God.]
With
the new consciousness of self, however, which arose late in the Middle Ages and especially in the Renaissance, man became
important to himself. [Man is the measure of all things.] The “I” –
particularly the “I” of the extraordinary genius [the “expert”] – became the
measure by which all human life was judged.”
(On this, see Nietzsche. Life is
only will-to-power. The world is only
will-to-power. Your job is to bring the
world into conformity with your will-to-power.
The relationship here between “will” and “power” is clear.)
7. Question: Do we treat Nature
better now than we did in the past? Do
we live more in harmony with Nature (and with one another) than we did in the
past? Or are we Nature’s torturer? We torture it to give us what we want. We torture others to get what we want from
them. Result: the war of all against
all. The war of Man
against Nature.
8. In becoming Nature’s god, did
we become its enemy? True, we don’t want
Nature to be our god, that’s for sure. But
if Nature isn’t going to guide us, what should?
9. Perhaps our God should be the
God of all creation; the God of love; God-incarnate. Would allowing God the Creator of All to be
our God cause us to treat Nature (and our fellow human beings) better?
10. Warning:
(a)
Note: This isn’t a question of us merely “obeying”: a competition of wills
between us and God, of diminishing our will so that His divine will can have
power over us.
(b)
This is a question of our will being in accord with our reason, our reason
discovering the truth about the world and especially the truth about the human
person. The truth about the world and
the truth about the human person is an expression not only of God’s will, but
of His Reason (the Logos).
(c)
Listening to God’s word (in Revelation) is to attend not only to God’s will,
but to God’s WISDOM. He who created the world wishes, out of
His love and goodness, for us to flourish.
And He has attempted to impart His wisdom through His law. “You want to know how to flourish in this
world, here are some basic instructions.”
(d)
“When human freedom submits itself to God’s law, it submits to the truth of
reality itself.” (Pope John Paul II): If this were true, would man be more or
less “alienated” from the world?