Re: BHA: the litmus test

[lynne engelskirchen <lhengels@xxxxxxx>]

Friends,

Back to basics:

Here is a passage from RTS. 54:

"The weakness of previous analysis of experimental activituy is that they
have not appreciated the significance of the fact that conjunctions of
phenomena have to be worked for practically (as well as in thought); that
conjunctions [of events] are not given to, but made by us.  In an important
study, von Wright has seen this.  But he has not drawn the correct
conclusion from it:  which is that, just because the experimenter is a
causal agent of the sequence of events, there must be an ontological
distinction between the sequence he generates and the causal law it enables
him to identify.  Any other conclusion renders experimental activity
pointless.  (Why generate that sequence?)  . . . It should be stressed that
the result that there is an ontological distinction between causal laws and
patterns of events depends upon only two premises:  (1) that men are causal
agents capable of interfering with the course of nature and (ii) that
experimental activity, the planned disruption of the course of nature, is a
significant feature of science."

As a result I have always considered the litmus test sufficient to
establish the ontological stratification of the world.

But is this so?

If you take the point of view that the world is made up of powerful
particulars, of which we are one kind, then there are all kinds of things
happening, some of which involve our agency and some of which don't.
Lightning strikes, a tree burns.  This involves the action of molecules,
etc., undergoing chemical reactions.  Why is there an ontological
difference between the transformation of wood in fire and acts of agency in
which I participate?  So why is there an ontological difference between my
interfering with the course of nature by putting litmus paper in acid and
the chemical reaction which turns the paper red?  Ruthlessly rejecting any
anthropomorphic perspective (and stepping back figuratively) it is all just
a play of powerful particulars doing their thing.  Why is ontological
stratification implied?

Now I suppose the direction to go with this is to insist precisely that
there is no ontological distinction among powerful particulars as such --
the ontological distinction is between causal agents of whatever sort that
interfere with the course of nature, e.g. a hydrogen atom that combines
with oxygen to produce water and the causal *laws* according to which
agents of whatever sort act.

But then what kind of real thing is this "law"?  In the appendix RB
explains the twofold way we use the word "law" in science -- (1) to refer
to our transitive statements of law, and (2) to refer to what it is in the
world the statement designates.

I had always assumed what the statement designated were causal mechanisms.
But causal mechanisms are powerful particulars: you and me, the structure
of hydrogen, etc.  These are part of the actual, not non-actual real.

And the ontological stratification is between the actual real and the
non-actual real.  So, if I have caught the emphasis correctly, the
distinction is between powerful particulars and laws.

But then what kind of "thing" is a law?  When we use the word, what is it
in the world we are designating?  The tendency of something to behave in a
particular way?  The philosopher Peirce held a stone before an audience and
said you know it will fall if I drop it.  But how do you know this?  And if
you truly know anything, then that which you know must be real.  He said
there were only two possibilities:  either stones have always fallen by
chance or stones fall because of "some active general principle" -- that
is,  "general principles are really operative in nature."  Then he added,
"That is the doctrine of scholastic realism."

?

Howard




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