An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge/Chapter 1

PART I

THE TRADITIONS OF SCIENCE

CHAPTER I

MEANING

1. Traditional Scientific Concepts. 1.1 What is a physical explanation? The answer to this question, even when merely implicit in the scientific imagination, must profoundly affect the development of every science, and in an especial degree that of speculative physics. During the modern period the orthodox answer has invariably been couched in terms of Time (flowing equably in measurable lapses) and of Space (timeless, void of activity, euclidean), and of Material in space (such as matter, ether, or electricity).

The governing principle underlying this scheme is that extension, namely extension in time or extension in space, expresses disconnection. This principle issues in the assumptions that causal action between entities separated in time or in space is impossible and that extension in space and unity of being are inconsistent. Thus the extended material (on this view) is essentially a multiplicity of entities which, as extended, are diverse and disconnected. This governing principle has to be limited in respect to extension in time. The same material exists at different times. This concession introduces the many perplexities centering round the notion of change which is derived from the comparison of various states of self-identical material at different times.

1.2 The ultimate fact embracing all nature is (in this traditional point of view) a distribution of material throughout all space at a durationless instant of time, and another such ultimate fact will be another distribution of the same material throughout the same space at another durationless instant of time. The difficulties of this extreme statement are evident and were pointed out even in classical times when the concept first took shape. Some modification is evidently necessary. No room has been left for velocity, acceleration, momentum, and kinetic energy, which certainly are essential physical quantities.

We must therefore in the ultimate fact, beyond which science ceases to analyse, include the notion of a state of change. But a state of change at a durationless instant is a very difficult conception. It is impossible to define velocity without some reference to the past and the future. Thus change is essentially the importation of the past and of the future into the immediate fact embodied in the durationless present instant.

This conclusion is destructive of the fundamental assumption that the ultimate facts for science are to be found at durationless instants of time.

1.3 The reciprocal causal action between materials A and B is the fact that their states of change are partly dependent on their relative locations and natures. The disconnection involved in spatial separation leads to reduction of such causal action to the transmission of stress across the bounding surface of contiguous materials. But what is contact? No two points are in contact. Thus the stress across a surface necessarily acts on some bulk of the material enclosed inside. To say that the stress acts on the immediately contiguous material is to assert infinitely small volumes. But there are no such things, only smaller and smaller volumes. Yet (with this point of view) it cannot be meant that the surface acts on the interior.

Certainly stress has the same claim to be regarded as an essential physical quantity as have momentum and kinetic energy. But no intelligible account of its meaning is to be extracted from the concept of the continuous distribution of diverse (because extended) entities through space as an ultimate scientific fact. At some stage in our account of stress we are driven to the concept of any extended quantity of material as a single unity whose nature is partly explicable in terms of its surface stress.

1.4 In biology the concept of an organism cannot be expressed in terms of a material distribution at an instant. The essence of an organism is that it is one thing which functions and is spread through space. Now functioning takes time. Thus a biological organism is a unity with a spatio-temporal extension which is of the essence of its being. This biological conception is obviously incompatible with the traditional ideas. This argument does not in any way depend on the assumption that biological phenomena belong to a different category to other physical phenomena. The essential point of the criticism on traditional concepts which has occupied us so far is that the concept of unities, functioning and with spatio-temporal extensions, cannot be extruded from physical concepts. The only reason for the introduction of biology is that in these sciences the same necessity becomes more clear.

1.5 The fundamental assumption to be elaborated in the course of this enquiry is that the ultimate facts of nature, in terms of which all physical and biological explanation must be expressed, are events connected by their spatio-temporal relations, and that these relations are in the main reducible to the property of events that they can contain (or extend over) other events which are parts of them. In other words, in the place of emphasising space and time in their capacity of disconnecting, we shall build up an account of their complex essences as derivative from the ultimate ways in which those things, ultimate in science, are interconnected. In this way the data of science, those concepts in terms of which all scientific explanation must be expressed, will be more clearly apprehended. But before proceeding to our constructive task, some further realisation of the perplexities introduced by the traditional concepts is necessary.

2. Philosophic Relativity. 2.1 The philosophical principle of the relativity of space means that the properties of space are merely a way of expressing relations between things ordinarily said to be ‘in space’ Namely, when two things are said to be both in space what is meant is that they are mutually related in a certain definite way which is termed ‘spatial.’ It is an immediate consequence of this theory that all spatial entities such as points, straight lines and planes are merely complexes of relations between things or of possible relations between things.

For consider the meaning of saying that a particle P is at a point Q. This statement conveys substantial information and must therefore convey something more than the barren assertion of self-identity ‘P is P.’ Thus what must be meant is that P has certain relations to other particles P′, P″, etc., and that the abstract possibility of this group of relations is what is meant by the point Q.

The extremely valuable work on the foundations of geometry produced during the nineteenth century has proceeded from the assumption of points as ultimate given entities. This assumption, for the logical purpose of mathematicians, is entirely justified. Namely the mathematicians ask, What is the logical description of relations between points from which all geometrical theorems respecting such relations can be deduced? The answer to this question is now practically complete; and if the old theory of absolute space be true, there is nothing more to be said. For points are ultimate simple existents, with mutual relations disclosed by our perceptions of nature.

But if we adopt the principle of relativity, these investigations do not solve the question of the foundations of geometry. An investigation into the foundations of geometry has to explain space as a complex of relations between things. It has to describe what a point is, and has to show how the geometric relations between points issue from the ultimate relations between the ultimate things which are the immediate objects of knowledge. Thus the starting point of a discussion on the foundations of geometry is a discussion of the character of the immediate data of perception. It is not now open to mathematicians to assume sub silentio that points are among these data.

2.2 The traditional concepts were evidently formed round the concept of absolute space, namely the concept of the persistent ultimate material distributed among the persistent ultimate points in successive configurations at successive ultimate instants of time. Here ‘ultimate’ means ‘not analysable into a complex of simpler entities.’ The introduction of the principle of relativity adds to the complexity — or rather, to the perplexity — of this conception of nature. The statement of general character of ultimate fact must now be amended into ‘persistent ultimate material with successive mutual ultimate relations at successive ultimate instants of time.’

Space issues from these mutual relations of matter at an instant. The first criticism to be made on such an assertion is that it is shown to be a metaphysical fairy tale by any comparison with our actual perceptual knowledge of nature. Our knowledge of space is based on observations which take time and have to be successive, but the relations which constitute space are instantaneous. The theory demands that there should be an instantaneous space corresponding to each instant, and provides for no correlation between these spaces; while nature has provided us with no apparatus for observing them.

2.3 It is an obvious suggestion that we should amend our statement of ultimate fact, as modified by the acceptance of relativity. The spatial relations must now stretch across time. Thus if P, P′, P″, etc. be material particles, there are definite spatial relations connecting P, P′, P″, etc. at time t₁ with P, P′, P″, etc. at time t₂, as well as such relations between P and P′ and P″, etc. at time t₁ and such relations between P and P′ and P″, etc. at time t₂. This should mean that P at time t₂ has a definite position in the spatial configuration constituted by the relations between P, P′, P″, etc. at time t₁.

For example, the sun at a certain instant on Jan. 1st, 1900 had a definite position in the instantaneous space constituted by the mutual relations between the sun and the other stars at a definite instant on Jan. 1st, 1800. Such a statement is only understandable (assuming the traditional concept) by recurring to absolute space and thus abandoning relativity; for otherwise it denies the completeness of the instantaneous fact which is the essence of the concept. Another way out of the difficulty is to deny that space is constituted by the relations of P, P′, P″, etc., at an instant, and to assert that it results from their relations throughout a duration of time, which as thus prolonged in time are observable.

As a matter of fact it is obvious that our knowledge of space does result from such observations. But we are asking the theory to provide us with actual relations to be observed. This last emendation is either only a muddled way of admitting that ‘nature at an instant’ is not the ultimate scientific fact, or else it is a yet more muddled plea that, although there is no possibility of correlations between distinct instantaneous spaces, yet within durations which are short enough such non-existent correlations enter into experience.

2.4 The persistence of the material lacks any observational guarantee when the relativity of space is admitted into the traditional concept. For at one instant there is instantaneous material in its instantaneous space as constituted by its instantaneous relations, and at another instant there is instantaneous material in its instantaneous space. How do we know that the two cargoes of material which load the two instants are identical? The answer is that we do not perceive isolated instantaneous facts, but a continuity of existence, and that it is this observed continuity of existence which guarantees the persistence of material. Exactly so; but this gives away the whole traditional concept. For a ‘continuity of existence’ must mean an unbroken duration of existence. Accordingly it is admitted that the ultimate fact for observational knowledge is perception through a duration; namely, that the content of a specious present, and not that of a durationless instant, is an ultimate datum for science.

2.5 It is evident that the conception of the instant of time as an ultimate entity is the source of all our difficulties of explanation. If there are such ultimate entities, instantaneous nature is an ultimate fact.

Our perception of time is as a duration, and these instants have only been introduced by reason of a supposed necessity of thought. In fact absolute time is just as much a metaphysical monstrosity as absolute space. The way out of the perplexities, as to the ultimate data of science in terms of which physical explanation is ultimately to be expressed, is to express the essential scientific concepts of time, space and material as issuing from fundamental relations between events and from recognitions of the characters of events. These relations of events are those immediate deliverances of observation which are referred to when we say that events are spread through time and space.

3. Perception. 3.1 The conception of one universal nature embracing the fragmentary perceptions of events by one percipient and the many perceptions by diverse percipients is surrounded with difficulties. In the first place there is what we will call the ‘Berkeleyan Dilemma’ which crudely and shortly may be stated thus: Perceptions are in the mind and universal nature is out of the mind, and thus the conception of universal nature can have no relevance to our perceptual life. This is not how Berkeley stated his criticism of materialism; he was thinking of substance and matter. But this variation is a detail and his criticism is fatal to any of the traditional types of ‘mind-watching-things’ philosophy, even if those things be events and not substance or material. His criticisms range through every type of sense-perception, though in particular he concentrates on Vision.

3.2 “Euphranor.^[1] Tell me, Alciphron, can you discern the doors, windows, and battlements of that same castle?

Alciphron. I cannot. At this distance it seems only a small round tower.

Euph. But I, who have been at it, know that it is no small round tower, but a large square building with battlements and turrets, which it seems you do not see.

Alc. What will you infer from thence?

Euph. I would infer that the very object which you strictly and properly perceive by sight is not that thing which is several miles distant.

Alc. Why so?

Euph. Because a little round object is one thing, and a great square object is another. Is it not so?

Alc. I cannot deny it.

Euph. Tell me, is not the visible appearance alone the proper object of sight?

Alc. It is.

What think you now (said Euphranor, pointing towards the heavens) of the visible appearance of yonder planet? Is it not a round luminous flat, no bigger than a six-pence?

Alc. What then?

Euph. Tell me then, what you think of the planet itself? Do you not conceive it to be a vast opaque globe, with several unequal risings and valleys?

Alc. I do.

Euph. How can you therefore conclude that the proper object of your sight exists at a distance?

Alc. I confess I do not know.

Euph. For your further conviction, do but consider that crimson cloud. Think you that, if you were in the very place where it is, you would perceive anything like what you now see?

Alc. By no means. I should perceive only a dark mist.

Euph. Is it not plain, therefore, that neither the castle, the planet, nor the cloud, which you see here, are those real ones which you suppose exist at a distance?”

3.3 Now the difficulty to be faced is just this. We may not lightly abandon the castle, the planet, and the crimson cloud, and hope to retain the eye, its retina, and the brain. Such a philosophy is too simple-minded — or at least might be thought so, except for its wide diffusion.

Suppose we make a clean sweep. Science then becomes a formula for calculating mental ‘phenomena’ or ‘impressions.’ But where is science? In books? But the castle and the planet took their libraries with them.

No, science is in the minds of men. But men sleep and forget, and at their best in any one moment of insight entertain but scanty thoughts. Science therefore is nothing but a confident expectation that relevant thoughts will occasionally occur. But by the bye, what has happened to time and space? They must have gone after the other things. No, we must distinguish: space has gone, of course; but time remains as relating the succession of phenomena. Yet this won’t do; for this succession is only known by recollection, and recollection is subject to the same criticism as that applied by Berkeley to the castle, the planet, and the cloud. So after all, time does evaporate with space, and in their departure ‘you’ also have accompanied them; and I am left solitary in the character of a void of experience without significance.

3.4 At this point in the argument we may break off, having formed a short catalogue of the sort of considerations which lead from the Berkeleyan dilemma to a complete scepticism which was not in Berkeley’s own thought.

There are two types of answer to this sceptical descent. One is Dr Johnson’s. He stamped his foot on a paving-stone, and went on his way satisfied with its reality. A scrutiny of modern philosophy will, if I am not mistaken, show that more philosophers should own Dr Johnson as their master than would be willing to acknowledge their indebtedness.

The other type of answer was first given by Kant. We must distinguish between the general way he set about constructing his answer to Hume, and the details of his system which in many respects are highly disputable. The essential point of his method is the assumption that ‘significance’ is an essential element in concrete experience. The Berkeleyan dilemma starts with tacitly ignoring this aspect of experience, and thus with putting forward, as expressing experience, conceptions of it which have no relevance to fact. In the light of Kant’s procedure, Johnson’s answer falls into its place; it is the assertion that Berkeley has not correctly expounded what experience in fact is.

Berkeley himself insists that experience is significant, indeed three-quarters of his writings are devoted to enforcing this position. But Kant’s position is the converse of Berkeley’s, namely that significance is experience. Berkeley first analyses experience, and then expounds his view of its significance, namely that it is God conversing with us. For Berkeley the significance is detachable from the experience. It is here that Hume came in. He accepted Berkeley’s assumption that experience is something given, an impression, without essential reference to significance, and exhibited it in its bare insignificance. Berkeley’s conversation with God then becomes a fairy tale.

3.5 What is ‘significance’? Evidently this is a fundamental question for the philosophy of natural knowledge, which cannot move a step until it has made up its mind as to what is meant by this ‘significance’ which is experience.

‘Significance’ is the relatedness of things. To say that significance is experience, is to affirm that perceptual knowledge is nothing else than an apprehension of the relatedness of things, namely of things in their relations and as related. Certainly if we commence with a knowledge of things, and then look around for their relations we shall not find them. ‘Causal connection’ is merely one typical instance of the universal ruin of relatedness. But then we are quite mistaken in thinking that there is a possible knowledge of things as unrelated. It is thus out of the question to start with a knowledge of things antecedent to a knowledge of their relations. The so-called properties of things can always be expressed as their relatedness to other things unspecified, and natural knowledge is exclusively concerned with relatedness.

3.6 The relatedness which is the subject of natural knowledge cannot be understood without reference to the general characteristics of perception. Our perception of natural events and natural objects is a perception from within nature, and is not an awareness contemplating all nature impartially from without. When Dr Johnson ‘surveyed mankind from China to Peru,’ he did it from Pump Court in London at a certain date. Even Pump Court was too wide for his peculiar locus standi; he was really merely conscious of the relations of his bodily events to the simultaneous events throughout the rest of the universe. Thus perception involves a percipient object, a percipient event, the complete event which is all nature simultaneous with the percipient event, and the particular events which are perceived as parts of the complete event. This general analysis of perception will be elaborated in Part II. The point here to be emphasised is that natural knowledge is a knowledge from within nature, a knowledge ‘here within nature’ and ‘now within nature,’ and is an awareness of the natural relations of one element in nature (namely, the percipient event) to the rest of nature. Also what is known is not barely the things but the relations of things, and not the relations in the abstract but specifically those things as related.

Thus Alciphron’s vision of the planet is his perception of his relatedness (i.e. the relatedness of his percipient event) to some other elements of nature which as thus related he calls the planet. He admits in the dialogue that certain other specified relations of those elements are possible for other percipient events. In this he may be right or wrong. What he directly knows is his relation to some other elements of the universe namely, I, Alciphron, am located in my percipient event ‘here and now’ and the immediately perceived appearance of the planet is for me a characteristic of another event ‘there and now.’ In fact perceptual knowledge is always a knowledge of the relationship of the percipient event to something else in nature. This doctrine is in entire agreement with Dr Johnson’s stamp of the foot by which he realised the otherness of the paving-stone.

3.7 The conception of knowledge as passive contemplation is too inadequate to meet the facts. Nature is ever originating its own development, and the sense of action is the direct knowledge of the percipient event as having its very being in the formation of its natural relations. Knowledge issues from this reciprocal insistence between this event and the rest of nature, namely relations are perceived in the making and because of the making. For this reason perception is always at the utmost point of creation. We cannot put ourselves back to the Crusades and know their events while they were happening. We essentially perceive our relations with nature because they are in the making. The sense of action is that essential factor in natural knowledge which exhibits it as a self-knowledge enjoyed by an element of nature respecting its active relations with the whole of nature in its various aspects. Natural knowledge is merely the other side of action. The forward moving time exhibits this characteristic of experience, that it is essentially action. This passage of nature — or, in other words, its creative advance — is its fundamental characteristic; the traditional concept is an attempt to catch nature without its passage.

3.8 Thus science leads to an entirely incoherent philosophy of perception in so far as it restricts itself to the ultimate datum of material in time and space, the spatio-temporal configuration of such material being the object of perception. This conclusion is no news to philosophy, but it has not led to any explicit reorganisation of the concepts actually employed in science. Implicitly, scientific theory is shot through and through with notions which are frankly inconsistent with its explicit fundamental data.

This confusion cannot be avoided by any kind of theory in which nature is conceived simply as a complex of one kind of inter-related elements such as either persistent things, or events, or sense-data. A more elaborate view is required of which an explanation will be attempted in the sequel. It will suffice here to say that it issues in the assertion that all nature can (in many diverse ways) be analysed as a complex of things; thus all nature can be analysed as a complex of events, and all nature can be analysed as a complex of sense-data. The elements which result from such analyses, events, and sense-data, are aspects of nature of fundamentally different types, and the confusions of scientific theory have arisen from the absence of any clear recognition of the distinction between relations proper to one type of element and^relations proper to another type of element. It is of course a commonplace that elements of these types are fundamentally different. What is here to be insisted on is the way in which this commonplace truth is important in yielding an analysis of the ultimate data for science more elaborate than that of its current tradition. We have to remember that while nature is complex with time-less subtlety, human thought issues from the simple-mindedness of beings whose active life is less than half a century.

Notes

1. Alciphron, The Fourth Dialogue, Section 10.