Our Modern Metaphysical Dilemma (and perhaps some solutions through)

The heavens are to be stripped as far as may be of all matter, lest the motions of planets and comets be hindered or rendered irregular. But if, meanwhile, someone explains gravity along with all its laws by the action of some subtle matter, and shows that the motion of planets and comets will not be disturbed by this matter, I shall be far from objecting. – Sir Isaac Newton

These premises clearly give the conclusion that there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior to them all and more divine than they. – Aristotle from On The Heavens

For motion in space is the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial motion; and this the first mover produces. The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all these senses – that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way. On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. – Aristotle from Metaphysics Book 12

While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain. – David Hume

Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left open to the consideration of my readers. – Sir Isaac Newton

Lately I have been immersing myself in philosophy. You might say I have been brushing up on my Plato and Aristotle, and funnily enough some very interesting things have been happening in my brain and being because of it. Their works and ideas have taken me down some very interesting paths – new fields of study which frankly I am not as acquainted with as I’d like to be, namely science.

Historically you may not be aware but the actual term “scientist” was coined as recently as 1833 when the Cambridge philosopher William Whewell during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science posited that those who study science should not be called philosophers (as was the custom since as far back as the Ancient Greeks if not even further) and instead should be called “scientists.” This is a vital historical fact that needs to be emphasized and re-emphasized today, because it marks a fundamental shift in the role, purpose, and function of science, and perhaps even more importantly of philosophy, in our society today. The way we define the term “science” certainly holds powerful ramifications for how we approach and consider what indeed falls under that realm of study altogether.

As I was reading Plato, Aristotle, and even other Greek philosophers like Epicurus, Heraclitus, Zeno, and Anaxagorous I noticed that every one of them, to the best of their abilities, all sought to hypothesize and theorize about not just the natural world around them but also the fundamental nature of the universe and of life itself. Plato revolutionized the nature of philosophy by creating arguably the first comprehensive Metaphysics to describe his over-arching perspective on life and being. Now let us first define our terms. The term metaphysics does NOT mean what many of us may think of today with hippie crystals and chakras and auras and whatnot. This is definitely NOT what the ancient Greeks were doing when they engaged in metaphysics. Metaphysics basically means the science of being. So metaphysics is more an ontological framework for understanding the most primal and fundamental aspects of life and existence. Perhaps you are beginning to see just how valuable such a study would be. We can learn all about Newtonian physics and all about Victorian literature and theories of economy or even theology but what does it all mean if we still don’t understand that which is? That which all things are? Without the metaphysical basis we are spending our time wrestling merely the tentacles of the octopus, never the octopus itself. In other words we are forever at least one derivative away from the truth, from the great unifying nature of being, the existence of all life and all living things as well as non-living things. In fact for both Plato and Aristotle in order to understand their thoughts and ideas on nearly any other aspect of human life, you must first understand their metaphysics, because it is their metaphysics which frames and delineates how they view and understand all other aspects of the world around them. And it does make sense – I mean if you first understand the nature of being, then it would only be logical to consider that pattern of being to be found over and over again in other aspects of life. So from their Metaphysics we can then understand their perspective and views on politics, art, ethics, theology, and even science. Everything falls into line. The Greeks constructed whole systems of thought and philosophy that were coherent within themselves, at least to the best of their own abilities, and were grounded in the natural and material world as well as deeply abstract and profound philosophically. In my personal opinion I think Aristotle marks the culmination of all philosophy as he seems to very clearly and logically debunk his predecessors positions where it is necessary, and state very powerfully and soundly his views of that which is. He also happens to be the father of biology as he created the entire classification process of species and genus. I think quite literally Aristotle may be the smartest person to ever live. Nevertheless it was fascinating and refreshing for me to read and immerse myself in these texts, their thoughts, theories, and implications, because I was immediately aware of how thorough and well constructed their entire worldview was. This naturally led me to compare their works with the works I find before me today, in our modern age. And as you can likely imagine I realized just how far short we fall in comparison. We need a robust philosophical revival in our culture today. The metaphysics of our times are weak, broken, and scattered. We must unify and cohere that which is into a more sound and grounded understanding, for like it or not, realize it or not, whatever metaphysics we hold (unconscious or not) dictates the ways in which we approach all of life around us.

Science at its heart is actually about looking at the world around us, philosophy connects that world around us to larger universal truths. The fact that our science and philosophy departments are no longer united is a detriment and deficiency to the nature of learning (with the exception of the incredible History of Philosophy and Science department which yours truly did briefly participate in while at college – we desperately need much more of such studies indeed). We are all paying a great price for this intellectual schism through a deep, forsaken feeling, a sense of loneliness and isolation, and a failure to more fully round out both our scientific explorations as well as our philosophical theories today. Our culture is deeply in need of great metaphysics that unify all the scientific advancements and understandings we now possess and which the ancient Greeks did not know like we do today. It is true that the entire Hellenistic world thought the earth was the center of the universe. They didn’t have calculus or know about the laws of gravity or sub-atomic particles or many medical advancements. The list goes on. But even still those detriments are certainly not reason enough to do away with their entire body of works and thoughts. It is a very unwise decision for our culture today, as advanced as it may be materially, to turn away from our Greek forebears, Aristotle in particular, for guidance and aid upon furthering our advancements scientifically let alone philosophically and logically. True philosophers are scientists and likewise true scientists are philosophers. We must always remember this vital truth.

So why did we stray so far from the ancient Greeks to begin with? Well this is where the Renaissance becomes an important part of our history which then leads to the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries culminating with the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. Once we realized the sun was the center of our known universe and not our earth, the ancients failed to gleam and shimmer as they had for over a thousand years throughout the Middle Ages. And it didn’t help that Aristotle believed constant force was necessary to keep objects in motion – Galileo and Newton debunked that idea with the first law of physics, the law of inertia – An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. These discoveries, and many others, completely upset the fundamental basis of much of ancient physics for the ancients misunderstood the laws of motion and the arrangement of our universe. Another interesting connection which I came across relative to Aristotle was how we have now sufficiently debunked his premise of fixed stars beyond the planets. Essentially Aristotle posited that there were heavenly orbs in the shape of spheres that existed beyond the known planet Saturn and that these spheres were rotating in perpetual motion. In his Metaphysics Aristotle also created a logical reasoning for what he termed the Unmoved Mover. This is essentially a logical proof for the existence of God, and I’d like to get into that logical proof a little further with you perhaps in its own separate post and discussion. Now Aristotle thought that these fixed spherical stars rotated in perpetual motion because they were in awe, in wonder, and in love of this great Unmoved Mover (namely God) which existed beyond those fixed stars at a place where humans couldn’t reach. Now as intriguing and interesting as these ideas are (at least to me anyway), many scientists certainly in Newton’s day as well as today consider the existence of these eternal and unchanging stars to be patently false and to not exist in our universe, and of course empiricists don’t like to accept the idea of a place that exists which humans cannot travel to observe and measure things. But as a side-note I have honestly been thinking and looking around our latest scientific discoveries, which Aristotle was not privy to, and trying to see if there is anything that might be a correlate to his fixed stars theories. I’m not sure if I’ve come up with anything as of yet, but this takes time, and perhaps in another post(s) I can offer you my own form of a Metaphysics as it were – we shall see! Nevertheless in many ways Aristotle’s ideas, which dominated scientific thought throughout the Middle Ages, turned out to be wrong thanks to the scientific revolution. Now of course this is a good thing, and Aristotle himself would have gratefully appreciated the discoveries to be sure – and indeed he said as much numerous times throughout his writings. I must also say that relatively speaking for his time Aristotle did actually get quite close to the truth regarding many aspects of science – he did lay the fundamental ideas for the laws of motion and cause and effect which were then advanced by Galileo and Newton. He believed that the Earth was in fact round even when the people in his day were saying it was flat, and he also thought that relative to the stars and space Earth was quite small, though still the center of the universe. He also created a logical connection between movement and time, and so in some far more distant way he even began to conceive of the seeds for Einstein’s theories on relativity. Not to mention the voluminous observations he made on all sorts of biological forms along with creating the very process by which we still classify and organize life today. As a side note the reason Aristotle was so interested in studying biological life and classifying it so intricately was because it was helping him form the basis for his Metaphysics – that is to say the science of being. He needed to understand all the various forms of life in order to then properly construct his scientific understanding of the nature of being. And so you see in this example just how intricately and intimately intertwined science and philosophy really are. Each one furthers the ends of the other in a never-ending continuum of discovery and theorizing. Aristotle is also responsible for much of our understanding of logic and how to think at all. So considering the times he lived in and with what technology he did have, Aristotle was pretty darned spectacular with his achievements, even if they weren’t exactly or precisely correct. But be that as it may, does it still stand to reason that the refutations against Aristotle’s physics should also be applied as refutations against his metaphysics? And what about the process of forming a metaphysics at all? To forego metaphysics completely certainly appears to be illogical, inconsistent, and unwise as well as having large and powerful implications on how our culture views the nature of being and existence altogether, not to mention the effects it has on science writ large. How many scientists today have written or conceived anything close to a metaphysics the likes of Plato or Aristotle? Richard Dawkins was only able to come up with what he termed the “God Dilemma.” Stephen Hawkins seems to be attempting to create a more sincere metaphysics, however it is still based on a multi-verse theory and model-dependent realism both of which are essentially outgrowths of Post-Modernism being applied in the field of science. To further understand Post-Modernism you can see my post discussing it all here. The fact is we must review the philosophical premises of our modern sciences more carefully, particularly since it seems that not too many scientists are concerned with their metaphysics at all these days, or if they are, they are certainly not speaking up about it, or if they are speaking up about it, they are being ostracized from the larger academic community or perhaps more benignly that larger academic structure simply doesn’t allow for a more multi-faceted approach to science. Mainstream science seems to be obsessed with the next great discovery, the next microscopic observation, the next outer limit we can reach. And without question these are all wonderful and necessary explorations, but they are not be had at the expense or sacrifice of our metaphysics. In fact when we consider just how scientifically accurate Aristotle really was relative to his level of technology and measuring devices, we can see even more clearly just how valuable a proper metaphysics and the right use of logic and philosophy really can play upon the formation of our scientific inquiries, hypotheses, and discoveries. The way in which we view the world is far more powerful than our scientists realize. Our metaphysics matter a great, great deal for they dictate the questions we ask, the places we seek for the next discoveries, and the methods we use to get there. The metaphysics frame the entire field of inquiry.

Since we are discussing the relationship between science and philosophy and comparing our modern day with that of the ancient Greeks, we must then consider the great Sir Isaac Newton. For Newton seems to mark the great dividing line in the sand between modern science and ancient science. Now to be sure there are many other lines in the sand drawn by many other great scientists no question, but Newton seemed to seal the deal. Interestingly though his discoveries seem to have actually had two opposing influences. On the one hand Newton’s work in using empiricism and experimental methodology paved the way for a more materialist approach to science. Of this there is certainly no debate. But interestingly it is what Newton’s methodologies actually uncovered which reopened larger philosophical chasms that frankly seem to still be unresolved today namely in the areas of Force, Gravity, and the nature of Space and Time. Newton was revolutionary in his day, because he perceived the nature of force upon objects as something that is actually NOT physically connected or at least not perceivable by the normal human eye. For example the force the Sun has on the orbit of planets. This notion of force at-a-distance was preposterous to nearly everyone around him. They all thought that it was the physical objects that were creating the force upon each other which caused things to move and change. However Newton contended that in fact the force itself was something between those objects which was not seen. He was then able to connect this to gravity and its relationship to mass. But there again a new unknown arose – what caused the gravity? The idea that objects could issue force upon other objects from a distance was the epitome of a non-empirical, un-experimental methodology. And throughout his life Newton was in a thrilling materialist debate particularly with Leibniz regarding this very issue. Of the many fascinating aspects of this entire subject, one thing that I find quite intriguing is how Newton seemed to answer one materialist question while simultaneously creating a new metaphysical one. Without end there seems to be mystery buried at the heart of creation. However unlike Aristotle for example, Newton refused to theorize too much about the nature of the universe beyond what he could perceive and study. In one of his more famous statements, Newton writes:

I have not as yet been able to deduce from phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena, is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

And so Newton flatly rejects metaphysics altogether and clearly positions himself along this new type of “experimental philosophy.” The fact that Newton refused to etch out a larger metaphysics based upon his new discoveries caused a great debate in his day, and I think also started a chain reaction which we can now see in our modern world as not just a reluctance but even a disdain for such theorizing. Without an ability to make measurements, science should not participate. This to me is the great dividing line between our modern day science and the ancient Greeks. Nothing stopped the Greeks from theorizing – nothing. And thank God for it, because they literally paved the way for the entire foundation of every single field of study we have today in our academics and universities the world over. The fact that Newton refused to think about the implications of his grand discoveries marks a great loss, because it marks the moment that science decoupled itself from philosophy. And frankly ever since we have been none the wiser at least in terms of metaphysics.

Now this is not to say that Newton did not influence philosophy for centuries to come, for indeed he did. As I mentioned above he was engaged in a lifelong and heated debate with Leibniz which paved the way for analytic philosophy in the 20th century. Newton himself was powerfully driven to debunk Descartes and the mathematical techniques he used as well as the conclusions he drew regarding natural philosophy. Remember as I said earlier that the term “scientist” wasn’t actually coined until 1833 – nearly 200 years after Newton’s birth. So in Newton’s mind he was actually engaging more as a natural philosopher, and apparently an “experimental philosopher” as well, namely what we consider a scientist today. Really all the “scientists” of that time actually considered themselves philosophers who used mathematics to more formally prove their points and discoveries and ideas. Newton was also influential among the empiricists like David Hume and John Locke and was also a major catalyst for Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason. It is clear then that Newton, although we rightly consider him a scientist today, was also in fact a philosopher of his time that not only revolutionized the way we approach science but also, since the two were still united together in his day, the way we approach philosophy and metaphysics in general.

Newton himself certainly believed in God, something perhaps scientists today are too eager to dismiss and disregard. In 1713 Newton published the second edition of his Principia but this time included what is called the General Scholium as well in which he rejects Descartes notions of vortices and also proclaims God as the creator of the universe. He writes, “This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” It seems that our great scientists today would never state let alone allow such a proclamation of intelligent design to echo through the halls of academia. And yet here is Newton. In fact years prior to writing the General Scholium Newton also assisted a theologian named Richard Bentley to construct sound scientifically based arguments for the existence of God and Intelligent Design in order to combat a growing trend of atheism. Clearly then Newton did hold a larger universal worldview alongside his scientific works, but he was not interested in constructing a more official metaphysics to bridge the two together. At the same time however there are moments where it seems like he simply cannot avoid it. In ways reminiscent of Plato’s Forms as well as Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, Newton termed the phrases “absolute space” and “absolute motion.” He states the following:

Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces; which our senses determine by its position to bodies: and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space … Absolute motion is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another: and relative motion, the translation from one relative place into another.

These conceptions that Newton formed and proved empirically, which Einstein then furthered, sound quite reminiscent of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, and are based philosophically as I stated above on Plato’s Forms. No matter how hard one can try, can we really ever get away from metaphysics and testing into the boundaries of the universe and the nature of being? As a side note throughout his General and Special Theories of Relativity, Einstein used the term “aether” to describe this absolute space and absolute motion, which he then merged together into one space-time. However again let it be known that the term “aether” comes in fact from no less than Plato and Aristotle, who conceived of a fifth element, a “prime body,” that was eternal and throughout space and was the element which made up the Sun, planets, and stars. In fact Newton initially also used aether to explain the medium that allows for action at-a-distance. Eventually he then shifted away from aether to his concept of gravity, but once again the framework was built upon the Ancient Greeks. The further we attempt to distance ourselves from them, the closer we seem to actually reach them. It is far wiser for us to embrace the Greeks more fully than ever before along with our advanced scientific modes of discovery. We will be only the greater for it.

At first glance Newton appears to be rejecting the Ancient Greeks, for he really doesn’t concern himself much with their propositions and instead is more obsessed with rejecting Descartes. And Descartes was attempting to reject a later version of Aristotelianism that had developed in the late middle ages where philosophers studying nature and natural philosophy didn’t actually study the world around them by conducting experiments. They actually just read books like Aristotle and others to gain more knowledge of the world around them. This of course is actually the opposite of Aristotle’s own techniques and methods which he himself used, and so it makes good sense to reject them, and Aristotle would certainly have agreed with that. Newton of course agreed with Descartes in rejecting this bookish form of natural philosophy, but argued that Descartes didn’t go far enough in his empirical measurements and applications, and so Newton became the Newton as we know him today. What makes this entire chain of events interesting is that by doing so Newton himself was actually in agreement with Aristotle who rigorously observed and studied the world around him as opposed to being locked away in a room with books. Descartes, and Newton then, by rejecting this later and perverted form of Aristotelianism, revived actual Aristotelian methods and techniques – namely studying the observable world as best as one can. Perhaps ironically then, Newton strikes me as a quintessential Aristotelian in his methodology and experimentation of particulars, but unlike Aristotle, Newton decides to focus only upon those methodologies. For although he was focused on scientific particulars, an Aristotelian mode to be sure, he was rather unwilling to deduce too much from his findings. Similarly Newton portrays certain Platonic tendencies as well in conceiving of non-material, idealized forms in the universe like absolute space and absolute motion, but again unlike Plato, he refuses to continue along philosophically with their metaphysical implications on the nature of the universe and therefore the nature of man in that universe. In fact for all the great writings and discoveries Newton produces, and to be sure they are unbelievably amazing and voluminous, he does not really render any overarching metaphysics at all. Perhaps Newton refused to hypothesize further because he feared the implications of his discoveries, or because he simply did not want to be presumptuous and theorize on something he could not actually test and properly examine. I suspect it was the latter, because throughout his life Newton contended with much debate and controversy over his discoveries and so dealing with one more outlandish claim wouldn’t have mattered much at all to him. And from my partial and preliminary readings of Newton, he does strike me as a truly humble man who genuinely wished to speak accurately and precisely to the best of his ability. He did not wish to mislead or presume much of anything regarding his work, even at the philosophical level, which is exactly why he sought to perfect his empirical, experimental, and mathematical methodologies. In this way though Aristotle would consider Newton’s works and efforts only half complete for Newton only dealt with the relations of beings, what Aristotle called the material cause and efficient cause, while refusing to consider the origin and final purpose of those beings, what Aristotle termed the formal cause and the final cause. This over-emphasis of efficient and material causes along with an under-emphasis of formal and final causes is precisely where we find our modern day metaphysics, namely in a position to explain in great detail how things operate and what they are made of, but failing to substantially understand the origins of these known phenomena, what Aristotle refers to as first principles, as well as their larger teleological purposes, and perhaps most especially how it all relates to humanity and our larger ethic and being and existence within this universe. Today we don’t consider such questions as all that scientific. We think of such contemplations as more philosophical or dare I say theological when in actual, historical fact these very questions are the foundations of all science as we know it. Truly much has changed over the centuries as to how we view and approach science – both for our benefit as well as our detriment. Whatever Newton’s reasons and motives for his own metaphysical oversights, it seems inescapable to conclude that Newton’s failure and reluctance to consider let alone publish any philosophical conclusions regarding his monumental discoveries laid the foundations for the division of science and philosophy and therefore fundamentally reshaped both fields of study in our modern day, sadly to the detriment of both.

Metaphysics exist and influence all of us even when we don’t fully conceptualize, articulate, or understand them. Newton, whether he liked it or not, did open doors (or perhaps he re-opened older, ancient doors) to certain metaphysical considerations, questions, and deductions. And even if he himself refused to consider those metaphysical implications fully, they still exist and impinge upon us all. Likewise today, say for example with Darwinian evolution, a whole host of metaphysical baggage comes right along with those scientific theories and discoveries. For example it is a known fact that Hitler and the Nazis in general were very consciously influenced by Darwin’s ideas on natural selection – this was a major ideological premise behind the horrible atrocities they enacted on so many different peoples. In their view the larger metaphysics justified such evils. Now this is not to say that all Darwinian evolutionists are Nazis – No! – that’s not the point at all. But it is true to say that the Nazi ideology was certainly Darwinian. And I think this is more than enough reason for metaphysical pause, reflection, and consideration. I mentioned earlier about my writing on Post-Modernism which you can find here. In that post I discuss the ways in which we find similar justifications and logical connections and how any theory has its implications upon the culture. Nevertheless the fact is that Newton himself, by not creating a larger metaphysics along with his discoveries, or at least by not continuing or furthering the Aristotelian or Platonic metaphysics, left our modern world without the intellectual tradition of providing a full and complete theory of the universe and the nature of being along with his fantastic mathematical and empirical discoveries. There are questions that still remain regarding the nature of the known universe and the nature of who we are exactly. And arguably the more we come to understand this physical world, the more we will need to fully and properly understand our metaphysical world. We must become more skilled philosophers and logicians and thinkers. Likewise the philosophers alive and working today must become more learned in science than ever before, just as our scientists must become more philosophical. In The Republic Plato states that all forms of government are imperfect and bound to fail – democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and aristocracy – they all fall apart and create a never ending cycle of one to the other. For Plato then we must develop what he termed “Philosopher-Kings” that would be wise enough and good enough and reasoned enough to rule and govern in accordance with the nature of the universe – namely Plato’s larger metaphysics – That Which Is. Perhaps in a similar way we must create more “Philosopher-Scientists” today. For thousands of years, up to and beyond Newton, these two fields of study were actually one and the same. It is only in our modern era that the two have been split apart, each now operating with a significant handicap, unable to finish each other’s sentences, answer each other’s questions, and complete both of their larger purposes. And look at the power of our sciences today! We can split atoms and create nuclear war! We can, or at least will very soon, create artificial intelligence and life that looks, sounds, and moves very much like real life. Science on its own without Philosophy is a purely materialistic endeavor, and materialistic endeavors fundamentally lack a key aspect and function of life – namely our larger and greater being, the meaning of life, the nature of existence. If all we have is our materiality, then we are already doomed. Real science is far greater than our materiality. Correspondingly Philosophy, without a solid foundation in the material world, becomes a detached masturbation that seems to achieve very little significance even after expending much energy and effort. Real philosophy is also far greater than such meanderings. The two fields need each other, indeed the two ARE each other just as man and woman are both human and together create new life. Let us create new life, just as Plato and Aristotle did over two thousand years ago, and Descartes and Newton and Leibniz did too. Let us continue on in this great arc of humanity, forever exploring and thinking, discovering and theorizing further. These are the guiding lights of our greater being. The reasons for our existence. The purpose underlying all that we do. Let these forces come alive again in the hearts and minds of all people in America and the world over. Our children need to ask why again with wonder. Let us all spin in awe just like those perfect fixed spheres Aristotle saw loving the Unmoved Mover beyond space and time. Yes let us find those stars, regardless if they exist or not, for their contemplation alone is more than reason enough for all of humanity to seek them throughout the known universe and beyond.