Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science
Description
cites Duhem's Aim & Structure, but doesn't spend too much time on Duhem
ch. 1 "Two [3?] philosophies of nature", §1.1 "What is the philosophy of nature?":
Three general views on this question were defended by twentieth-century Thomistic philosophers (Cf. Koren 1962, pp. 18-22).
- The first essentially endorses Aquinas’s treatment of natural science and the philosophy of nature as continuous, amounting to the more concrete and the more abstract aspects, respectively, of a single species of knowledge distinct from metaphysics (Wallace 1982). This is the view associated with what is called either “Laval Thomism” (named for Laval University in Quebec, where its eminent proponent Charles De Koninck was a professor) or “River Forest Thomism” (named for a suburb of Chicago which was the location of the Albertus Magnus Lyceum for Natural Science, whose members were also associated with this view).
- The second view takes natural science and the philosophy of nature to be distinct species of knowledge, but nevertheless species in the same one genus, which is itself distinct from metaphysics. This view was associated with the Neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain (1951, pp. 89-98).
- The third view takes the philosophy of nature to amount not only to a distinct species of knowledge from natural science, but to be of a distinct genus as well, and in particular to amount to a branch of metaphysics. This view was presented in some of the manuals of Thomistic philosophy of the Neo-Scholastic era, such as Andrew Van Melsen’s text on the philosophy of nature (1954, chapter 3).
As my characterization of the philosophy of nature above indicates, my sympathies are with this third approach to the subject.
I'm surprised Feser would like #3 best. "[M]y sympathies", however, are with #1 and a bit with #2, but not at all with #3. Aristotle's Revenge shall be an interesting read. ☺
ref:10.166 on artificial intelligence (AI) and Searle's critique in the context of 5.5 Is computation intrinsic to physics?" (ref:10.143ff.) It isn't; computation/information obtains its meaning from us; cf. cybersemiotics.
Abstract
Actuality and potentiality, substantial form and prime matter, efficient causality and teleology are among the fundamental concepts of Aristotelian philosophy of nature. Aristotle’s Revenge argues that these concepts are not only compatible with modern science, but are implicitly presupposed by modern science. Among the many topics covered are the metaphysical presuppositions of scientific method; the status of scientific realism; the metaphysics of space and time; the metaphysics of quantum mechanics; reductionism in chemistry and biology; the metaphysics of evolution; and neuroscientific reductionism. The book interacts heavily with the literature on these issues in contemporary analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science, so as to bring contemporary philosophy and science into dialogue with the Aristotelian tradition.
Table of Contents
0. Preface 1
1. Two philosophies of nature
1.1 What is the philosophy of nature? 3
1.2 Aristotelian philosophy of nature in outline 12
1.2.1 Actuality and potentiality 13
1.2.2 Hylemorphism 20
1.2.3 Limitation and change 27
1.2.4 Efficient and final causality 32
1.2.5 Living substances 39
1.3 The mechanical world picture 42
1.3.1 Key elements of the mechanical philosophy 43
1.3.2 Main arguments for the mechanical philosophy 52
2. The scientist and scientific method
2.1 The arch of knowledge and its “empiriometric” core 65
2.2. The intelligibility of nature 75
2.3 Subjects of experience 85
2.4 Being in the world 95
2.4.1 Embodied cognition 97
2.4.2 Embodied perception 106
2.4.3 The scientist as social animal 114
2.5 Intentionality 116
2.6 Connections to the world 124
2.7 Aristotelianism begins at home 132
3. Science and Reality
3.1 Verificationism and falsificationism 139
3.2 Epistemic structural realism 151
3.2.1 Scientific realism 151
3.2.2 Structure 158
3.2.3 Epistemic not ontic 171
3.3 How the laws of nature lie
(or at least engage in mental reservation) 177
3.4 The hollow universe 191
4. Space, Time, and Motion
4.1 Space 195
4.1.1 Does physics capture all there is to space? 195
4.1.2 Abstract not absolute 198
4.1.3 The continuum 204
4.2 Motion 208
4.2.1 How many kinds of motion are there? 208
4.2.2 Absolute and relative motion 212
4.2.3 Inertia 216
4.2.3.1 Aristotle versus Newton? 216
4.2.3.2 Why the conflict is illusory 216
4.2.3.3 Is inertia real? 225
4.2.3.4 Change and inertia 229
4.3 Time 233
4.3.1 What is time? 233
4.3.2 The ineliminability of tense 239
4.3.2.1 Time and language 239
4.3.2.2 Time and experience 243
4.3.3 Aristotle versus Einstein? 256
4.3.3.1 Making a metaphysics of method 256
4.3.3.2 Relativity and the A-theory 264
4.3.4 Against the spatialization of time 274
4.3.5 The metaphysical impossibility of time travel 282
4.3.6 In defense of presentism 269
4.3.7 Physics and the funhouse mirror of nature 303
5. The philosophy of matter
5.1 Does physics capture all there is to matter? 307
5.2 Aristotle and quantum mechanics 310
5.2.1 Quantum hylemorphism 312
5.2.2 Quantum mechanics and causality 324
5.3 Chemistry and reductionism 330
5.4 Primary and secondary qualities 340
5.5 Is computation intrinsic to physics? 351
5.5.1 The computational paradigm 352
5.5.2 Searle’s critique 359
5.5.3 Aristotle and computationalism 366
6. Animate nature
6.1 Against biological reductionism 375
6.1.1 What is life? 375
6.1.2 Genetic reductionism 384
6.1.3 Function and teleology 387
6.1.4 The hierarchy of life forms 391
6.2 Aristotle and evolution 400
6.2.1 Species essentialism 400
6.2.2 Natural selection is teleological 406
6.2.3 Transformism 420
6.2.4 Problems with some versions of “Intelligent Design” theory 432
6.3 Against neurobabble 442
Bibliography 457
Index 499
About the Author
Edward Feser is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California, USA. His many books include Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction , Aquinas , and the edited volume Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics.
KOReader notes:
1.2.1 Actuality and potentiality
12/20/241.2.1 Actuality and potentiality : 42
The theory of actuality and potentiality, then, is for the Aristotelian absolutely crucial to understanding what any empirical and material world would have to be like for scientific knowledge of it to be possible. Since it deals with the necessary metaphysical preconditions of any possible natural science, it is deeper than any finding of natural science – whether physics, chemistry, biology, or whatever – and thus cannot be overturned by any such finding.
1.2.2 Hylemorphism
12/20/241.2.2 Hylemorphism : 51
it seems to be essential to a thing’s having a substantial form that it has properties and causal powers that are irreducible to those of its parts
1.2.4 Efficient and final causality
12/20/241.2.4 Efficient and final causality : 65
Elizabeth Anscombe (1981) pointed out, the way we typically distinguish something’s coming into being from its being transported from somewhere else is precisely in causal terms
But with transubstation this distinction doent’ hold (as a real distinction)
1.3.1 Key elements of the mechanical philosophy
12/21/241.3.1 Key elements of the mechanical philosophy : 86
“primary qualities” as size, shape, spatial position, and local motion, and devoid of “secondary qualities” like color, sound, odor, taste, heat, and cold, which are reinterpreted as mere projections of the mind rather than really inhering in material things as they are in themselves.
12/21/241.3.1 Key elements of the mechanical philosophy : 97
if that is what laws are, then they don’t seem to explain anything. To appeal to the notion of a law when giving a scientific account of the relationship between events of type A and events of type B ends up being nothing more than a re-description of that relationship in a new jargon, rather than a way of making it intelligible why that relationship holds
1.3.2 Main arguments for the mechanical philosophy
12/21/241.3.2 Main arguments for the mechanical philosophy : 100
Much of the motivation for the mechanical philosophy was political rather than philosophical or scientific.
2.3 Subjects of experience
12/22/242.3 Subjects of experience : 164
is sometimes claimed that change can be analyzed in terms of temporal parts theory or four-dimensionalism (Sider 2001
12/22/242.3 Subjects of experience : 165
temporal parts theory does not really provide an alternative analysis of change at all, but in fact implicitly denies the reality of change (Oderberg 2004 and 2009
2.4.3 The scientist as social animal
12/23/242.4.3 The scientist as social animal : 212
“triangulation” between the language user, other language users, and objects in their common environment.
à le C. S. Peirce
3.2.1 Scientific realism
12/27/243.2.1 Scientific realism : 288
structural realism, a version of scientific realism according to which the aspects of reality that our best scientific theories capture are, specifically, its structural aspects
3.2.2 Structure
12/27/243.2.2 Structure : 306
even if what is captured in the abstract language of mathematics is the most certain part of physics, it is also the least informative part of it.
3.2.3 Epistemic not ontic
12/28/243.2.3 Epistemic not ontic : 313
mathematical structure of the world is essentially knowledge of relations, and that there cannot be relations without relata. Hence it cannot be that mathematical structure exhausts reality
12/28/243.2.3 Epistemic not ontic : 313
revise our concept of a relation in such a way that it can exist without relata (Chakravartty 2007, p. 77
semiotic?
12/28/243.2.3 Epistemic not ontic : 315
infinite regress of relations is any less problematic than relations without relata?
Cf. Poinsot on such ∞ regresses
3.3 How the laws of nature lie (or at least engage in mental reservation)
12/28/243.3 How the laws of nature lie (or at least engage in mental reservation) : 329
there must be something more to a law of nature than merely being a regularity.
12/28/243.3 How the laws of nature lie (or at least engage in mental reservation) : 338
occasionalist view that only God ever really causes anything. (Cf. Feser 2013b. For a critique of occasionalism, see Feser 2017, pp. 232-38.)
4.2.2 Absolute and relative motion
12/29/244.2.2 Absolute and relative motion : 387
For given its far greater mass, the sun exerts a gravitational pull on the earth that is much greater than the pull that the earth exerts on the sun.
false
12/29/244.2.2 Absolute and relative motion : 388
All the evidence of the senses is compatible with the external world being illusory and with other human beings being zombies (in the philosopher’s sense of that term) rather than conscious, just as it is compatible with all real motion being relative rather than absolute. But few would suggest that this is a good reason seriously to doubt that the external world or other minds are real, and neither should it lead us to doubt that absolute motion is real.
4.2.3.2 Why the conflict is illusory
12/29/244.2.3.2 Why the conflict is illusory : 395
Lee Smolin writes:
Being at rest becomes merely a special case of uniform motion – it is just motion at zero speed.
How can it be that there is no distinction between motion and rest? The key is to realize that whether a body is moving or not has no absolute meaning
12/29/244.2.3.2 Why the conflict is illusory : 400
Law of Inertia in the sense of absence of forces is similar to Aristotle’s concept of natural gravitation
but freefall motion is accellerating
5.1 Does physics capture all there is to matter?
01/08/255.1 Does physics capture all there is to matter? : 556
it would be circular to define matter as a quantity of matter
5.2.1 Quantum hylemorphism
01/10/255.2.1 Quantum hylemorphism : 569
The whole is more than the sum of its parts, as it is on the hylemorphic account of physical substances.
5.3 Chemistry and reductionism
01/11/255.3 Chemistry and reductionism : 604
As Peter Hoenen (1955, pp. 39-50) explains, to be in a substance virtually is therefore to be in it in a way that is a kind of middle ground between pure potentiality on the one hand, and actuality on the other
So potentiality comes in degrees.
Is every potentiality that‘s not pure a virtuality?
01/11/255.3 Chemistry and reductionism : 610
Hendry (2006, 2010a, 2017) also argues that there are cases of molecules which differ chemically (such as ethanol and dimethyl ether) even though their description at the level of quantum mechanics is the same.
5.4 Primary and secondary qualities
01/11/255.4 Primary and secondary qualities : 611
Early twentieth-century Aristotelians were divided on the issue, with some defending the commonsense understanding of the secondary qualities and others essentially conceding the modern Lockean position. (Cf. Bittle 1936, chapter XII for an overview of the debate.)
5.5.2 Searle’s critique
12/07/235.5.2 Searle’s critique : 655
Here the issue is, not how the symbols posited by the computationalist get their meaning, but rather whether it even makes sense in the first place to speak of symbols – even uninterpreted symbols – existing apart from human convention and apart from any observer.
cf. Poinsot‘s word in book has meaning even if unread
5.5.3 Aristotle and computationalism
12/07/235.5.3 Aristotle and computationalism : 658
claim that computation is intrinsic to the natural world
physico or physio semiosis?
6.2.2 Natural selection is teleological
01/15/256.2.2 Natural selection is teleological : 733
indeterminacy in the sense operative in thought experiments like the one from Quine discussed in chapter 2 and the one from Kripke discussed in chapter 5
01/17/256.2.2 Natural selection is teleological : 753
If you want to be a Darwinian evolutionist, you need to be an Aristotelian.
6.2.3 Transformism
01/17/256.2.3 Transformism : 759
it might appear that for living things to arise from inorganic precursors, or for one species to give rise to another, would be for an effect to have something that was not first in its cause. For this reason it is sometimes claimed that evolution and Aristotelian philosophy of nature cannot be reconciled. (Cf. Chaberek 2017
01/17/256.2.3 Transformism : 764
what Aquinas is describing here is primarily a sequence of ontological levels rather than a temporal sequence. Still, the reality of the one sequence lends plausibility to the possibility of the other, and Aquinas himself appeals to a temporal sequence (the stages he of embryonic development, as he supposed it worked) to illustrate the reality of the ontological sequence.
6.2.4 Problems with some versions of “Intelligent Design” theory
01/19/256.2.4 Problems with some versions of “Intelligent Design” theory : 784
It is to confuse epistemology with metaphysics.
Dembski seems to be arguing there is no distinction between these
6.3 Against neurobabble
01/19/256.3 Against neurobabble : 801
the phenomenon known as “blindsight,” a subject’s primary visual cortex has been damaged to the extent that he is no longer capable of having conscious visual experience in at least certain portions of his visual field. (Cf. Weiskrantz 2009.)
01/19/256.3 Against neurobabble : 801
Rosenberg claims that “science reveals that introspection – thinking about what is going on in consciousness – is completely untrustworthy as a source of information about the mind and how it works” (pp. 147-8). In particular, “the idea that to see things you have to be conscious of them” is “completely wrong” (p. 149).