science

You are currently browsing articles tagged science.

Rousseau on a botanical model of science

December 27, 2011 in Epistemology, Nature, Rousseau | No comments

Jean Jacques’ self-contained passion for botanic endeavours, his love for ‘herborisation’, confirmed a certain organization and system in nature, a ‘chaîne de rapports et de combinaisons’.(1) This acknowledgement was not from a theoretical order, it was obtained from his own cultivating experience in his retreat to L’Ermitage. A major shift in the observation of nature occurred based on the recollection of actual elements rather than on the exemplification of rules and models. In his letters on botanic he deployed meticulous and careful observations,(2) introducing technical concepts for the teaching of a neophyte. The series of eight letters addressed to Mme. Delessert witnessed this circumstance. Botanic provided with a strong counterpart to classical science based on manipulation rather than on mere observation.(3)

Rousseau also cultivated, as an amateur, the sciences. Rather than classical mechanics, his interest shifted towards chemistry, to which he devouted the unpublished Institutions chymiques. Here he reflected on Stahl’s distinction between aggregate and mix, by which the latter adquired novel properties by means of the combination of the previous discrete elements. Physics, classical modern science, more deemed to a static analysis, would be in charge of describing the exterior of a body, meanwhile chemistry would be concerned rather with the interior, in the same vein as Rousseau devouted his effort to displaying all his dynamic interiority. The chemical paradigm helped distilling the theological content of Bossuet’s concept of organism and refurbishing the noetic space with new central metaphors and alignments of elements that would reappear in the division within the individual and in the achievement of an internal conglomerate by means of the nation.(4)

His later ideas on nature point to a continual flux and, on the other hand, an individual wish for stability: “Je voudrais que cet instant durât toujours.” (5) Time and continuity were reconciled with the consistency of the I that always escaped definition, either because of external change or because of inner motions. Observation, focusing the attention externally, provoked a certain forgetfulness of the self. Self-conscience was released and projected on the entire nature; the absence of self-awareness unveiled the being, sparse, opaque to attention, conveying experience and communion.

Only the perpetual tides of change impeded human welfare. The object of fulfilment was also in continuous movement producing an endeavour, a strife never to be accomplished, with no possible halcyon, -a never ending agitation. Change was related to a certain concept of golden age; a lost paradise that lied in a hypothetical past, not in any metaphysical or mysterious doctrine.

(1) Confessions XII [Seuil I, p. 369].
(2) “La Corolle du Lis n’est pas d’une seule piéce comme il est facile à voir. Quand elle se fane et tombe, elle tombe en six piéces bien séparées qui s’appellent des Pétales.” [Pléiade IV p. 1153].
(3) Cf. P. Saint-Amand “Rousseau contre la science: l’exemple de la botanique dans les textes autobiographiques” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 219, 1983, pp. 159-67.
(4) An ambitious portrait of chemistry’s influence in other areas of Rousseau work can be found in B. Bensaucle- Vincent and B. Bernardi, Rousseau et les sciences, Paris, 2003. Chemistry allowed him “… constituter, si je puis risquer cette expression, le terreau dont ses concepts politiques en formation avaient besoin pour se nourrir.” B. Bernardi, “La place des référents scientifiques dans l’invention conceptuelle: Une étude de cas”, B. Bensaucle- Vincent and B. Bernardi, op. cit., p. 311. Chemistry and both the idea of composition and organism were still consistent with Rousseau’s endeavor, both the description of the individual and the arrengement, the politicalformula, behid the constitution of the sovereign. The orography had included this new element an was to be affected, once more, on other areas of knowledge and the representation of power. Besides the few scientifical writings of Rousseau, as a divulgator, included spherical geometry in his Traité de la sphére (1760-7), he showed a deflection from cartesian analytical geometry. Rousseau actually used the mechanical image to despise his enemies “…je compris que mes contemporains n’étoient par rapport à moi que des êtres méchaniques qui n’agissoient que par impulsion et dont je ne pouvais calculer l’action que par les loix du mouvement…” Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire VIII [Seuil I, p. 535].
(5) Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire V [Seuil I, p. 523]. Starobinski observed the incompatibility of Rousseau’s aimed transparent reference with his empirical reality, “…je suis authentiquement cette infidélité à un équilibre que me sollicite toujours et qui se refuse toujours.” J. Starobinski, op. cit., p. 76.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Hobbes on the ends of science

December 9, 2010 in Hobbes, Modernity | No comments

In 1620 Bacon’s Novum Organum was published exposing the ends of natural philosophy: the welfare of men and experimentation, both the practical and theoretical aspects of science in a manipulative rather than speculative fashion. Knowledge called upon a practical content, this praxiological edge dispensed with the only possible assertion of the real existence of the world, favoring a practical solution to the annihilatio mundi, to the cloaking of reality by the senses. Manipulation verified both theories and their relation with reality, it furnished the nuance between a replied epistemology and a vanishing ontology.

Moreover, science had to be productive in direct criticism to the sterile discussions common in academic circles; philosophy had to serve society. Hobbes reprised his mentor in his later work and put forward his motto, “nam scire est posse”.(1) Thus, the sciences did not convey as much power as arts, engineering or crafts.(2) In his later work an aestheticism of artifice was proposed in which beauty was reduced to utility, “in artibus inventa nova, si utilia, pulchra…”(3)

Francis Bacon- New Atlantis

Francis Bacon- New Atlantis

(1) De Homine, XI, 13.
(2) Leviathan, I, 10, 14-15.
(3) De Homine, XI, 13.

Tags: , ,

Hobbes on science

November 28, 2010 in Epistemology, Hobbes | No comments

From such a conception of experience followed his rejection of Boyle’s experimental program, according to Shapin and Schaffer.(1) Hobbes also wrote that it was by means of expectation, in the sense of accordance with previous subjective observations, with familiarity, and not with any transcendental law of cause and effect, that experience was achieved. Experience was, in this sense, always personal.(2) How could it become science in the sense of a detached corpus of knowledge?

According to Hobbes, legality constituted science. Philosophy was basically a search for causes, an awareness about the effects and causes, about the necessity of causes.(3) He distinguished between two types of knowledge, tied to the two aforementioned methods, a knowledge of facts, resting on experience, and a knowledge about consequences, that is, proper science. Science conveyed the capacity to predict and search for causes by seeking for required conditions, a system in which causes were necessities. The antecedent of an event, its cause, was defined as the totality of accidents.(4) In Hobbes’s full, replete, universe a mechanicist attitude provided with an explanation for every circumstance with an accurate description of a previous state.

Moreover, the effects observed were due to the existence of particular conditions in both the agent and the patient. The effect of the agent on the patient had to suffice to produce sensation.(5) Power was the ability to be a cause, resembling the Aristotelian potentia.(6) Once more Hobbes reckoned on traditional concepts, on the given elements, in his ‘mechanisation of Aristotelianism’.(7) According to Hobbes science is composed of a deterministic set of laws, to him

A possible action is one which is not impossible. Consequently, every possible action will be produced at some time or other; for if it is supposed that it will never be produced,it will never be the case that all the requirements of its production will come together; therefore (by definition) this action is impossible, which is contrary to what was supposed.(8)

Boyle air pump
Boyle’s air pump

(1) S. Shaphin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life including a translation of Thomas Hobbes, Dialogue physicus de natura aeris, Princeton, 1985. His passion for natural philosophy together with his boldness and current mistakes truncated his aspirations within the nascent scientific community. In his latter years Hobbes saw the flourishing of the Royal Society. The aim of this institution was to apply the Baconian ideals of science and remove Scholasticism from its privileged stand. Despite the allegiance with Hobbes’s ideals in many respects and his acknowledged status, he never became a member and was disdained by some of its most outstanding members like Boyle or Wallis, personal reasons being involved. Cf. N. Malcom, “Hobbes and the Royal Society”, in G.A.J. Rogers and A. Ryan (eds.), op. cit., refers to other reason relating to his rejection by members of the Royal Society: Hobbes’s anticlericalism dangerous for the proper evolution of the incipient institution and its social image. On the other hand they defended, according to the Lord Chancellor’s principles, the implementation of experiments without feigning any theoretical hypotheses –admonishing the famous hypothesis non fingo-, solely based on controlled, verifiable, experiments. This procedure contravened Hobbes’s conviction that thought science had to be concerned with statements of necessity not with verified contingency.
(2) “Experience concludeth nothing universally,” Elements of Law, I, 4, 10.
(3) De Corpore, I, 2.
(4) “…causa (per denitionem) sit aggregatum accidentium…” De Corpore, IX, 7.
(5) “Est autem ex his statim hoc manifestum, effectum quem expectamus, cum agentia sint idonea, tamen propter defctum idonei patientis, et cum patiens sit idoneum, tamen propter defectum agentium idoneorum, frustari posse.” De Corpore, IX, 4. “Power and action correspond to cause and effect. Indeed, power is the same thing as cause, and action is the same thing as effect…” De Corpore, X, 1.
(6)“…la puissance est la cause en tant qu’elle ne s’est pas encore produit.” L. Foisneau, “Le vocabulairde du pouvoir, potentia/potestas, power,” Y.-Ch. Zarka (ed.), op. cit., p. 88. This author realizes a comparison of both Latin terms and proposes that, meanwhile the use of Hobbes’ potentia is based on partial equivalences with other terms (causa, facultas and excessus), potestas is equivalent to another set of synonyms (autoritas, imperium and dominium), …on trouve chez Hobbes deux philosophies du pouvoir…” p. 102. Actually they cohered and became entangled.
(7) Cf. C. Leijenhorst, The Mechanisation of Aristotelianism. The Late Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes’ Natural Philosophy, Leiden, 2002.

Tags: , , ,

Hobbes on deductive science

November 11, 2010 in Methodology | No comments

Hobbes’s classical training had set him in contact with the idea of a scientia civilis, with classical eloquence.(1) But the craft of persuasion and eloquence produced no definitive or unquestionable results. It was supported by the use of certain stratagems to convince and move the audience.(2) This probably did not appease Hobbes. Following a wider array of influences like the optical experiments carried by the Charles Cavendish, -family to which Hobbes served-, or the fluid contacts with Marinne Mersenne, Hobbes assayed to apply the model of natural philosophy: geometry.
The contagion of Galileo’s more geometrico(3) could be tracked down to his famous revelation when, according to his biographer, Aubrey, Hobbes had the chance of reading Euclides’ Elements for the first time in his stage in Paris in 1629. The capacity of achieving astonishing results with the use of a limited number of axioms and principles, the wonder of deductive science had a definite grip on him. This style was also recreated, embedded, in his political work, in the definition of the diverse concepts in the Element of Laws, as well as in the logical construction of De Cive. (4)
Geometry provided the genuine framework for a study based on quantity and extension, but was able to attain qualitative assertions; qualitative identity in geometry was based on quantitative grounds, in the sense that two parallelograms with same surface were rendered equal. Hobbes’s relation with deductive sciences was not only theoretical; he also dealt with the nova scientia in his major tract on natural philosophy, De Corpore, and in a series of minor works concerning geometry, like his De principiis et racinatione geometrarum (1666). Hobbes insisted in geometry as the proper method for philosophy.(5) The new science was also apt to provide with an explanation of human behaviour like geometry was able to describe the movement of bodies. The extension of the mechanistic metaphor and the geometric method thus produced profound consequences and reverberations in the plane of construction.

Hobbes on Pythagoras

Hobbes discovers geometry: the ‘Pythagoras’ proposition from Isaac Barrow’s edition of Euclid (London 1659) via http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/about/exhibitions/online/aubrey/mathematics

(1) Cf. Q. Skinner, op. cit., Part I ‘Classical Eloquence in England’. V. Kahn, “Hobbes a Rhetoric of Logic”, Rhetoric, Prudence and Skepticism in the Renaissance, New York, 1985.
(2) “An orator can never hope to prove or demonstrate his conclusions beyond doubt (demonstrare); he can only hope to discuss and debate the rival merits of different points of view (dissere).” Q. Skinner, op. cit., p. 103. His early translation of Thucydides already pointed out at the possibility of recovering history as maestra, in the vein of Renaissance. Inductivism related to history as a source of lessons like in Bodin or Machiavelli, but it produces a doxography and no necessary illation between antecedents and effects, it is vacuous in the sense that it does not purvey with any legal assertion of necessity or regularity, it was not scientific.
(3) A few years after Hobbes’s major works, Spinoza, a Jewish optician in Amsterdam, formulated a complete philosophical system more geometrico.
(4) Also the self-reference within the text, a usual device in geometrical treatises, is elaborated to clarify quod eram demonstrandum. There are several examples of this e.g. “…as has been manifested above in the 5. Article of the 8. Chapter.” De Cive, X, 5. This method used in physical treatise An example of his method: “Definitur majus esse cujus pars est aequalis alteri toti; si jam ponatur totum aliquod A et pars ejus B, quoniam totum B est aequale sibi ipsi, et pars totius A est ipsum B, erit pars ipsius A aequalis toti B; quare per definitionem majoris, A est majus quam B; quod erat probandum.” De Corpore, VIII, 25.
(5) “For where the nature of humane Actions as distinctly knowne, as the nature of Quantity in Geometricall Figures, the strength of Avarice and Ambition, which is sustained by the erroneous opinions of the Vulgar, as touching the nature of Right and Wrong, would presently faint and languish; And Mankinde should enjoy such and Inmortall Peace, that (unlesse it were for habitation, on supposition that the Earth should grow too narrow for her Inhabitants) there would hardly be left any pretence for war.” De Cive, W. Devonshire.

Tags: , , , ,

Hobbes and Galileo

October 21, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

“E a chi si ha da ricorrere per definire la nostra controversia, levato che fusse di seggio Aristotile? qual altro autore si ha da seguitare nelle scuole, nelle academie, nelli studi? qual filosofo ha scritto tutte le parti della natural filosofia, e tanto ordinadamente, senza lasciar indietro pur una particolar conclusione ? adunque si deve desolar quella fabrica, sotto la quale si ricuoprono tanti viatori? Si deve destrugger quell’asilo, quell Pritaneo, dove tanto agiatamente si ricoverano tanti studiosi, dove, senza sporsi all’ingiurie dell’aria, col solo rivoltar poche carte, si acquistano tutte le cognizioni della natura ? si ha da spiantar quel propugnacolo, dove contro ad ogni nimico assalto in sicureza si dimora?”

G. Galilei, Dialoghi dei Massimi Sistemi, Giornata Prima, 1632.


After Galileo’s publication of his Dialoghi dei Massimi Sistemi in 1632, the foundational text of modern science, -a defense of the Copernican system and the consequent criticism of the Aristotelian and Catholic geocentric universe-, in 1634, Hobbes had the opportunity, in his third trip to the Continent, to meet the natural philosopher –‘philosophus maximus’ according to his Anti-White-, under home arrest in Florence due to his defended theses.
After his visit to Galileo, Hobbes possibly developed the ambition of laying down the ground of moral philosophy in conformity with the new scientific principles. Moral philosophy was meant to be the logical outcome of a renewed natural philosophy, of a novel standpoint towards nature and knowledge. The first obstacle in this enterprise were the accepted opinions, opposed to knowledge, in a Platonic sense, that infected the realm of political philosophy. In the same vein as Descartes, he raised his suspicion concerning the Aristotelian edifice and endeavored in constructing a demonstrative science anew.
In his Dialoghi Galileo had discussed the principles and observations related to both the Aristotelian and the Copernican model. The latter banished not only the former’s physics, but also its amalgamation with the Christian doctrine: their integration in a common plane of construction, particularly in their belief of a universe centered on earth. Galileo also came with the foundation of two new sciences in his Dialoghi delle nuove scienze (1638), -the strength of materials and the motion of objects-, dignifying the mechanical conception, quantitative, and based in the principles of matter and movement, against the Aristotelian-Thomist nature, both qualitative and active.

Tags: , , , ,