Re: The conflict at Notre Dame - Whitehead

["Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re. the following:

“By the doctrine of Law as immanent it is meant that the order of
nature expresses the characters of the real things which jointly
compose the existences to be found in nature.  When we understand the
essences of these things, we thereby know their mutual relations to
each other.  Thus, according as there are common elements in their
various characters, there will necessarily be corresponding identities
in their mutual relations.  In other words, some partial identity of
pattern in the various characters of natural things issues in some
partial identity of pattern in the mutual relations of those things.
These identifies of pattern in the mutual relations are the Laws of
Nature.  Conversely, a Law is explanatory of some community in
character pervading the things which constitute Nature.  It is evident
that the doctrine involves the negation of ‘absolute being’.  It
presupposes the essential interdependence of things.
“There are some consequences to this doctrine.  In the first place, it
follows that scientists are seeking for explanations and not merely for
simplified descriptions of their observations.  In the second place the
exact confirmation of nature to any law is not to be expected.  If all
the things concerned have the requisite common character, then the
pattern of mutual relevance which expresses the character will be
exactly illustrated.  But in general  we may expect  that a large
proportion of things do possess the requisite character and a minority
do not possess it.  In such a case, the mutual relations of these
things will exhibit lapses when the law fails to obtain illustration.
In so far as we are merely interested in a confused result of many
instances, then the law can be said to have a statistical character.
It is now the opinion of physicists that most of the laws of physics,
as known in the nineteenth century, are of this character.

Comment:

Whitehead's proposition "that scientists are seeking for explanations and
not merely for simplified descriptions of their observations" makes sense
ONLY when it is construed as descriptive of how some/many/most scientists
choose to characterize the object of their work.

Whitehead effectively concedes this in his follow-up proposition that "the
exact confirmation of nature to any law is not to be expected."

For, absent "EXACT confirmation of nature to any law", any and all
"explanations" of observed phenomena are speculative.

Gunnar


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Winslow" <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2003 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: The conflict at Notre Dame


>
> Roger Koppl wrote:
>
> > you could quote Keynes on pretty polite techniques
> > for the board room.
>
> You could also quote the arguments by which he demonstrates that the
> nature of the material of economics (e.g. the fact that social
> relations are internal relations) severely limits the applicability of
> axiomatic, mathematical and quantitative methods.
>
> The psychological basis of the methods pointed to in the conception of
> them as "pretty polite techniques" explains their immunity to rational
> critique.
>
> I've previously quoted Whitehead on why the ontological fact of
> "Internal Relations" limits the applicability of axiomatic and
> quantitative methods.  Here he is on its incompatibility with the
> conception of "fixed, eternal laws regulating all behaviour" (as in
> Friedman's idea of economics as a search for "numerical `constants'",
> for "fundamental regularities", for "uniformity ... of the same order
> as many of the uniformities that form the basis of the physical
> sciences.")
>
> “By the doctrine of Law as immanent it is meant that the order of
> nature expresses the characters of the real things which jointly
> compose the existences to be found in nature.  When we understand the
> essences of these things, we thereby know their mutual relations to
> each other.  Thus, according as there are common elements in their
> various characters, there will necessarily be corresponding identities
> in their mutual relations.  In other words, some partial identity of
> pattern in the various characters of natural things issues in some
> partial identity of pattern in the mutual relations of those things.
> These identifies of pattern in the mutual relations are the Laws of
> Nature.  Conversely, a Law is explanatory of some community in
> character pervading the things which constitute Nature.  It is evident
> that the doctrine involves the negation of ‘absolute being’.  It
> presupposes the essential interdependence of things.
> “There are some consequences to this doctrine.  In the first place, it
> follows that scientists are seeking for explanations and not merely for
> simplified descriptions of their observations.  In the second place the
> exact confirmation of nature to any law is not to be expected.  If all
> the things concerned have the requisite common character, then the
> pattern of mutual relevance which expresses the character will be
> exactly illustrated.  But in general  we may expect  that a large
> proportion of things do possess the requisite character and a minority
> do not possess it.  In such a case, the mutual relations of these
> things will exhibit lapses when the law fails to obtain illustration.
> In so far as we are merely interested in a confused result of many
> instances, then the law can be said to have a statistical character.
> It is now the opinion of physicists that most of the laws of physics,
> as known in the nineteenth century, are of this character.
> “Thirdly, since the laws of nature depend on the individual characters
> of the things constituting nature, as the things change, then
> correspondingly the laws will change.  Thus the modern evolutionary
> view of the physical universe should conceive of the laws of nature as
> evolving concurrently with the things constituting the environment.
> Thus the conception of the Universe as evolving subject to fixed,
> eternal laws regulating all behaviour should be abandoned.  Fourthly, a
> reason can now be produced why we should put some limited trust in
> induction.  For if we assume an environment largely composed of a sort
> of existences whose natures we partly understand, then we have some
> knowledge of the laws of nature dominating that environment.  But apart
> from that premise and apart from the doctrine of Immanent Law, we can
> have no knowledge of the future.  We should then acknowledge blank
> ignorance, and not make pretences about probability.
> “Fifthly, the doctrine of Immanent Law is untenable unless we can
> construct a plausible metaphysical doctrine according to which the
> characters of the relevant things in nature are the outcome of their
> interconnections, and their interconnections are the outcome of their
> characters.  This involves some doctrine of Internal Relations.
> “Finally, the doctrine of Immanence is through and through a
> rationalistic doctrine.  It is explanatory of the possibility of
> understanding nature.”  (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas,  [Free Press
> Paperback Ed., 1967] pp. 111-3)
>
> The argument that
>
> "the laws of nature depend on the individual characters of the things
> constituting nature, as the things change, then correspondingly the
> laws will change.  Thus the modern evolutionary view of the physical
> universe should conceive of the laws of nature as evolving concurrently
> with the things constituting the environment.  Thus the conception of
> the Universe as evolving subject to fixed, eternal laws regulating the
> all behaviour should be abandoned."
>
> was, as I've many times indicated, explicitly made by Marshall about
> the "subject-matter" of economics.
>
> "As the [19th] century wore on ... people were getting clearer ideas as
> to the nature of organic growth. They were learning that if the
> subject-matter of a science passes through different stages of
> development, the laws which apply to one stage will seldom apply
> without modification to others; the laws of the science must
> have a development corresponding to that of the things of which they
> treat.  The influence of this new notion gradually spread to the
> sciences which relate to man; and showed itself in the works of Goethe,
> Hegel, Comte and others."
>
> Keynes (X, p. 197) describes this understanding of the difference
> "between the objects and methods of the mathematical sciences and those
> of the social sciences" as indicative of "the profundity of his
> [Marshall's] insight into the true character of his subject in its
> highest and most useful developments" (X, p. 188).
>
> Ted
>
>