The New Aspects of Time: Its Continuity and Novelties

367 Pages·1990·12.93 MB·English

by  Milič Čapek (auth.)

THE NEW ASPECTS OF TIME
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University ofP ittsburgh
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of
the City University ofN ew York
VOLUME 125
MILIC CAPEK
THE NEW ASPECTS OF TIME
Its Continuity and Novelties
Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Science
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Capek. Milit:.
The new aspects of time: its continuity and novelties I MiliC
Capek.
p. cm. -- (Boston studies in the philosophy of science; v.
125)
Includes bib110graphical references.
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7455-1 e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-2123-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2123-8
1. Space and time. 2. Time--Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
Q174.867 vo 1. 125
[OC173.59.S651
001' .01 s--dc20
[530.1' 11 90-44196
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7455-1
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
EDITORIAL PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTORY INTERVIEW xi
I. THE PROBLEMS OF TIME IN PSYCHOLOGY
1. Stream of Consciousness and duree reelle 3
2. The Elusive Nature of the Past 26
3. The Fiction of Instants 43
4. Two Types of Continuity 56
5. Process and Personality in Bergson's Thought 71
6. Russell's Hidden Bergsonism 89
II. MATTER, CAUSATION, AND TIME
7. The Development of Reichenbach's Epistemology 103
8. The Significance of Piaget's Researches on the
Psychogenesis of Atomism 129
9. Toward a Widening of the Notion of Causality 139
10. Simple Location and Fragmentation of Reality 167
11. Particles or Events? 191
m. THE STATUS OF TIME IN THE RELATIVISTIC PHYSICS
12. The End of the Laplacian Illusion 221
13. Eternal Recurrence - Once More 265
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
14. Note About Whitehead's Definition of Co-Presence 278
15. Bergson and Louis De Broglie 286
16. What is Living and What is Dead in the Bergsonian Critique
of Relativity 296
17. Time-Space Rather than Space-Time 324
IV. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MILle CAPEK 345
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All previously published papers are included in this volume with the kind
permission from editors and publishers, which is hereby gratefully
acknowledged. The original places of publication are as follows:
1. 'Stream of Consciousness and 'duree reel/eo' Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, X, No.3 (1950), 331-353.
2. 'The Elusive Nature of the Past,' Experience, Existence, and the
Good. Southern Illinois University Press, (1961),126--142.
3. 'The Fiction ofInstants', Studium Generale 24 (1971), 31=43.
4. 'Two Types of Continuity,' Boston Studies in the Philosophy of
Science 13. D. Reidel Publishing Company, (1974), 364-375.
5. 'Process and Personality in Bergson's Thought,' The Philosophical
Forum 17 (1959),25-42.
6. 'Russell's Hidden Bergsonism,' Bergson and Modern Physics
(Boston Studies 7). D. Reidel Publishing Company, (1971),
333-345.
7. 'The Development of Reichenbach's Epistemology,' The Review of
Metaphysics 11 (1957),42--67.
8. 'The Significance of Piaget's Researches on the Psychogenesis of
Atomism,' Boston Studies VIII. D. Reidel Publishing Company,
(1970),446--455.
9. 'Toward a Widening of the Notion of Causality,' Diogenes, no. 28
(Winter 1959),63-90.
10. 'Simple Location and Fragmentation of Reality,' The Monist 46
(1964), 195-218.
11. 'Particles or Events?,' Boston Studies 82. D. Reidel Publishing
Company, (1984), 1-28.
12. 'The End of the Laplacian Illusion,' Philosophical Impact of
Contemporary Physics. D. van Nostrand Company, (1961),
289-332.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
13. 'Eternal Recurrence - Once More,' Trans. ofe.S. Peirce Soc., 19,
no. 2 (1983), 141-153.
14. 'Note About Whitehead's Definitions of Co-Presence,' Philosophy
ofS cience 24 (1957), 79-86.
15. 'Bergson and Louis de Broglie,' Bergson and Modern Physics
(Boston Studies 7). D. Reidel Publishing Company, (1971),
292-301.
16. 'What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Bergsonian Critique of
Relativity,' trans. of French original in Revue de Synthese (1980),
313-344.
17. 'Time-Space Rather than Space-Time,' Diogenes, No. 123 (1983),
30-49.
EDITORIAL PREFACE
At last his students and colleagues, his friends and his friendly critics, his
fellow-scientist and fellow-philosophers, have the works of Milic Capek
before them in one volume, aside from his books of course. Now the
development of his interests and his thoughts, always led centrally by his
concern to understand 'the philosophical impact of contemporary
physics', becomes clear. In the nearly 90 essays and papers, and in his
book on the philosophical impact as well as his classical restatement of
process philosophy in his Bergson and Modern Physics, Professor Capek
establishes one of the fundamental alternatives to the comprehension of
human experience, and thereby of the world.
Capek is certainly to be seen with respect and admiration, for he has
dealt with the deepest and toughest of scientific as well as metaphysical
problems: his major efforts in the philosophy of mind focussed upon the
time of experience, and in the philosophy of physics focussed upon
continuity, causality and again the temporal, now in the world-picture.
Has Capek brought a renaissance of Bergson's thought, working as he has
in the writings of Whitehead, Russell, Piaget, Einstein, de Broglie, and
the others? Must the fellow:philosopher always share a deep presupposi
tion in order to answer Capek's question, the title of a paper here,
'Particles or Events?'
I am so glad my dear friend agreed to speak with Professor Ronald
Martin about his life, his times as he lived them, and his work. The
introductory essay will gently but firmly bring readers into his context,
into the plausibility and the reality of Milic Capek's 'open universe'.
September 30, 1990 R.S. Cohen
ix
INTRODUcrORY INTERVIEW
MILIC CAPEK WITH RONALD E. MARTIN
RM: How and at what point in your intellectual development did you
get interested in the problem of time?
Me: Even before my university education I began to realize the
problematic nature of time - in particular the aspect of its future. If all
future events result inevitably from their antecedent states, they do
possess genuine reality, even though their pre-existence is not yet
perceived now, but will later be inevitably perceived. Such causal
necessity seems to be equivalent to logical necessity: just as in the
traditional system of logic the conclusion is contained in the premises, the
causal effect is contained in its causal antecedent, even though our
psychological grasp of the future is not instantaneous. In other words, the
strict causal relation seems to be indistinguishable from the logical
implication.
RM: Do you remember your first awareness of this problem?
Me: I do remember in 1926 reading the novel The Time Machine, by
H.G. Wells, in a good translation. The author represents the past, present,
and future alongside each other; even though they are perceived by us in
succession, they truly co-exist, juxtaposed along a static dimension of
time which seemed like a fourth dimension of space. Wells imagines that
while one is riding on a magical time machine, he could move in either
direction and see the allegedly dead past as well as the allegedly not
existing (for us) future. But I could see in that an inherent difficulty.
RM: And what difficulty was that?
Me: As an ordinary physicist or biologist could point out, the machine
and its passenger should be affected by travelling in either direction in
time. By moving into the future, the machine would rust and then
disintegrate; its passenger would age and finally die and enter the grave.
When the machine went back into the past it would become increasingly
new and shining until it would decompose (by an inverted logic) into
parts and fmally into the minerals. The passenger would diminish in size,
become a child, and finally reenter his mother's womb. The situation is
xi