Einstein Infeld, The Evolution of Physics
"...This (Newton's, Galileo's) law of inertia cannot be derived directly from experiment. but only by speculative thinking consistent with observation...." p. 8,9.
One, among many, question then emerges.
How can speculative thinking either be, or not be, consistent with a given observation?
The question of the meaning of consistency is begged ab initio.
What they are actually talking about here, but do not mention it in these terms, is a thought experiment.
I am not challenging the validity of the law of inertia itself, as articulated at that point in history.
Rather, I am talking about the relationship between this narrative interpretation of the development of such a law, first by Galileo and then Newton, and the received narrative of what was thought of and discussed as scientific method at that time.
One could hardly get from Bacon's, or Locke's, or most especially Hume's, enlightenment empiricism to anything whatsoever like this.
Thus, to blindly identify, in Whig hindsight, such scientific discoveries with what is called the enlightenment is a grotesque mockery.
One way to put it might be that the enlightenment rolled out in the very teeth of the "scientific revolution", and then also in the very teeth of the so called "industrial revolution" as well. That is the huge intellectual point.
Here's another way to put it: It had already required, although they themselves did not comprehend this, that the senses be considered as perceptual systems to even get to the point of conceiving of such things as Galileo's and Newton's development of a law of inertia.
"How, in speaking of men whom he calls null, brutish, stupid, imbecile, can he exalt with enthusiasm their antique simplicity, their original goodness, their primitive innocence?"
"Has anyone ever said of an orang-outang that it was naturally good and happy wise and simple? or spoken of its antique simplicity, primitive innocence, and original goodness?""No, Jean-Jacques, I shall not treat you as a bad man for having dared to maintain that man is born good. Everyone knows that man comes from his creator good, happy, wise, and perfect; no one disputes this truth. What you are blamed for is your making man come from his creator in a state of stupidity, and yet maintain that in this state men are good, happy, wise, and simple. What you are blamed for is making their goodness depend on their imbecility, their happiness on their stupidity. What you are blamed for is your having been guilty in all your writings of an enormous abuse of language, and having offered us, as the true road to happiness, the ignorance, imbecility, and stupidity that you have not blushed to attribute to our first parents."
Le Gros, Examen des ouvrages de J.-J. Rousseau et de Court de Gobelin (Geneve, 1786), pp 62 -66.
The Enlightenment state of nature, Krugman's, that of Locke, Diderot, and Rousseau, and of course Adam Smith, etc, was really a state of benign Godless anarchy, where isolated individuals, basically good but stupid by nature dwelt mostly in peace, plenty, and accidental harmony, pursuing their natural appetites.
See eg: Catholics and Unbelievers in 18th Century France, Index Locke, Diderot, Rousseau.
"Paradoxically, the men who trusted so highly in the powers of intelligence regarded the mind as essentially vacant and inert; the idea of the passive mind was indispensable to their system. it was the guarantee that the truths of nature might be perceived without distortion. It was the basis for the distinction, then so important and so clear, between enlightenment and prejudice. It was the metaphysical groundwork for the belief that men were equal, and that they possessed the quality of perfectibility, that is, susceptibility to progress. Minimizing the effects of will, denying original predisposition, refusing to see any inevitability in human nature, the doctrine was flatly contrary to the Christian idea of sin; and by representing man as a passive child of circumstances, easily abused by his environment, it slipped sometimes into a notion that human nature, when crude, is good; and that order, restraint, discipline, and suppression are affronts to man's dignity and freedom." Palmer, p 133, 134
No comments:
Post a Comment