The Scientist’s Atom and the Philosopher’s Stone: How Science Succeeded and Philosophy Failed to Gain Knowledge of Atoms PDF
Preview The Scientist’s Atom and the Philosopher’s Stone: How Science Succeeded and Philosophy Failed to Gain Knowledge of Atoms
THESCIENTIST’SATOMAND THEPHILOSOPHER’SSTONE BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editors ROBERTS.COHEN,BostonUniversity JU¨RGENRENN,MaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience KOSTASGAVROGLU,UniversityofAthens EditorialAdvisoryBoard THOMASF.GLICK,BostonUniversity ADOLFGRU¨NBAUM,UniversityofPittsburgh SYLVANS.SCHWEBER,BrandeisUniversity JOHNJ.STACHEL,BostonUniversity MARXW.WARTOFSKY†,(Editor19601997) VOLUME279 THE SCIENTIST’S ATOM AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE How Science Succeeded and Philosophy Failed to Gain Knowledge of Atoms ALANCHALMERS 123 Dr AlanChalmers UniversityofSydney FlindersUniversity UnitforHistoryandPhilosophyofScience PhilosophyDepartment N.S.W.2006 POBox2100 Australia Adelaide5001 [email protected] Australia alan.chalmers@flinders.edu.au ISBN 978-90-481-2361-2 e-ISBN 978-90-481-2362-9 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2362-9 SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergLondonNewYork LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2009928422 (cid:2)c SpringerScience+BusinessMediaB.V.2009 Nopartofthisworkmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorby anymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,microfilming,recordingorotherwise,withoutwritten permissionfromthePublisher,withtheexceptionofanymaterialsuppliedspecificallyforthepurpose ofbeingenteredandexecutedonacomputersystem,forexclusiveusebythepurchaserofthework. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com) Preface In1989itbecamenecessaryformetodesignaseniorundergraduatecourseinthe historyofthephysicalsciencesforanewprogrammeinHistoryandPhilosophyof ScienceattheUniversityofSydney.Ichosetosurveythehistoryofatomismfrom Democritustothetwentiethcentury,therebygivingstudentsatasteofthevarying contextsinwhichsciencehasbeenpractised.TheworkIneededtodotopreparefor thatcoursesoondevelopedintoamajorresearchproject.Thisbookistheoutcome. Oneoftheoriginalsourcessubjecttoacriticalreadingbymystudentsandmy- self was Robert Boyle’s essay ‘On the grounds and excellency of the mechanical hypothesis’. My appraisal of that essay appeared as a journal article in 1993. It represented a critical moment in the evolution of my thoughts on the history of atomism.InmyarticleIdistinguishedbetweenBoyle’saccountofthefundamental make-up of the physical world that he called the mechanical philosophy and the fruitsofhisexperimentation,bestrepresentedbythepneumaticsthathesupported byexperimentswithhisairpump.Itwasthatdistinctionthatgavemethebasisfor thethesisdefendedinthisbook.Icametoseemodernatomictheoryastherather recentlegacyofexperimentalscienceasitemergedintheseventeenthcenturyrather thanatraditionofspeculativephilosophydatingbacktoDemocritusandextending toseventeenth-centurymechanicalphilosophyandbeyond. The title of my article of 1993, ‘The lack of excellency of Boyle’s mechanical philosophy’ made some historians uncomfortable. Presumably they suspected that I was using contemporary standards to cast judgement on Boyle’s case. There is certainly a fundamental problem involved here. How can one defend a philosoph- ical thesisabout thechanging natureofscience byinvoking thehistoryofscience withoutprojectingontopastsciencedistinctionsandnormsthathadyettobecon- structed? The fact that my early research had not totally come to grips with that problemwasbroughthometomein1998atatimewhenIwasaSeniorResearch FellowattheDibnerInstitutefortheHistoryofScienceandTechnology,aninstitu- tionthat,regrettably,hassincebeendisbanded.IreadapaperinwhichIpresented as a problem the fact that, on the one hand, Boyle distinguished between his me- chanical philosophy and his experimental science and yet, on the other, claimed thathismechanicalphilosophyhadexperimentalsupport.ThefollowingdayIwas subjecttothecustomarygrillingbytheotherFellows.Myconfidenceinmyposition wasshakenwhenoneofthePostdoctoralFellowsaskedmeifIthoughtBoylewas v vi Preface confused. I had no satisfactory answer to that question. I still lacked an answer in 2007, when I taught a course on the history of atomism to a class of very dis- cerning graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh. I presented the problem raisedbymyinquisitorattheDibnertomystudents,invitingthemtorespondtoit. No definitive answer emerged. I believe I can now dissolve the problem and I do so in Chapters 6 and 8 of this book. It draws on a distinction between two kinds of empirical support, a strong one involved in Boyle’s experimental science and a weakeroneinvolvedinhisdefenceofthemechanicalphilosophy.Idonothaveto imposethatdistinctiononBoyle’sworkbecauseitcanbeseentohavebeenmade byBoylehimself,onceonehaslearntwheretolook.Ihopemybookdisplayshow historyandphilosophyofsciencecanbeintegratedinawaythatcombinesrigorous philosophicalargumentwithhistoryofsciencethatlivesuptothehigheststandards ofscholarlyresearch.1 Boyledistinguishedbetweenphilosophicaltheoriesabouttheultimatestructure ofmatterandlessambitiousclaimssubjecttoexperimentalinvestigationandverifi- cationexemplifiedinthelawthatbearshisname.Buthisappreciationofthedistinc- tiondidnothave,andcouldnotpossiblyhavehad,theimplicationsforhimthatthe distinction between philosophy and science has for us. Modern debates about the ultimatestructureofmatterareconductedbyphilosophersaspartofwhattheycall ‘metaphysics’.Thedistinctionbetweentheirpracticeandthatofscientistsisrecog- nised and, indeed, institutionalised insofar as the two practices are accommodated indifferentuniversityfaculties.Theoutcomesofthedeliberationsofmodernmeta- physicianshaveimplicationsonlyforahandfulofaddictsandareoflittleconcern to, and have minimal effect on, anyone else. Their ponderings tend to be a source of bemusement if not amusement for scientists. The situation was very different in the seventeenth-century situation in which Boyle worked. Natural philosophers were engaged in attempts to comprehend and give a theoretical basis for the new social formations and also in attempts to rewrite Christian theology following the discrediting of the Aristotelian philosophy with which it had become entwined in theMiddleAges.AmechanicalphilosopherlikeThomasHobbesputhisversionof themechanicalphilosophytoworkintheLeviathanjustasBoyleputhismechanical philosophytoworkinthetheologythatheconstructedaspartofhiscountertothe atheismthatthreatenedhim.Appeal toBoyle’slaw orthecirculationoftheblood wouldnothaveservedsuchpurposesatall.Seventeenth-centurymetaphysics,inthe guise of the mechanical philosophy, was not the marginal and specialised activity that the metaphysics conducted in modern philosophy has come to be. Neverthe- less,adistinctionbetweenphilosophicalmetaphysicsandexperimentalphilosophy emerged,andwasmadeexplicit,intheseventeenthcentury.Ibelievewelearnmuch about science by recognising the way in which, by the beginning of the twentieth century, a general atomic theory of matter that was experimentally supported had comeaboutinawaythatowedlittletothephilosophicalversionsofatomismthat hadoriginsinAncientGreece.Thatiswhatmybookisintendedtodemonstrate. My research into the history of atomism has been carried out in a number of institutionalcontextsandIwouldliketoacknowledgethesupportIhavereceived. I have already referred to my period as a Senior Research Fellow at the Dibner Preface vii Institute for the History of Science and Technology. I held a similar position at the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh in 2003/4 andwasanErskineFellowattheUniversityofCanterbury,NewZealandin2000. I have also been hosted by the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science attheLondon School ofEconomics, theDepartment ofPhilosophy atthe UniversityofBristoland,forshorterperiods,attheDepartmentforHistoryofSci- ence at Harvard University and the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester. For a decade after my retirement from the Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney late in 1999, my base was the DepartmentofPhilosophyatFlindersUniversity,Australia,where,asanHonorary SeniorResearchFellow,Iwasabletoretainafootholdinacademiaandavailmyself ofthatuniversity’sresources.AtFlindersIwasalsoabletohonemyphilosophical argumentsbyexploitingtheexpertiseofthephilosophers,especiallyGregO’Hare, from whom I could get an insightful summary of the latest analytic philosophy in awaythatsparedmetheneedtosearchtheliterature,andGeorgeCouvalis,whose doggedrefusaltobeconvincedbymyargumentsconstitutedanever-presentchal- lengethatledtoimprovementsinthem.AlsoworthyofspecialmentionisRodney Allenwhosesupportextendedfurtherthansupplyingthecoffee. TherearemanyindividualsfromwhomIhavelearnt,andIamsuretoforgetto mentionsomeofthem.AlanMusgravereadtheentiremanuscriptofthefirstdraftof thisbookandsupplieddetailedcommentsandcriticismsthatwereinvaluable.One ofhismarginalnotesonmymanuscriptreads‘decidewhatyouwanttosayandsay it’,whichexemplifiestheforthrightandhenceproductivecharacterofhiscritique.I amindebtedtotherecentscholarshipofWilliamNewmanandUrsulaKlein,whichI drawonextensively.Unknowntothem,Ihavehadinnumerable,almostdaily,virtual conversations with them. Regrettably, our personal confrontations have been few, althoughtheyhavebothbeengenerousinrespondingtomycorrespondence.Other individuals whose help and encouragement warrants mention are, in alphabetical order,PeterAnstey,KeithBemer,JedBuchwald,HasokChang,KarenRueHauck, KeithHutchison,DeborahMayo,RobertNola,JohnNorton,DenisPozega,Andrew Pyle,NicholasRasmussen,JonahSchupbachandNeilThomason. IwouldliketorecallthedebtIowetothelateHeinzPost.HewasHeadofthe DepartmentofHistoryandPhilosophyofScienceatChelseaCollege,Universityof LondonandsupervisedmyPhDthesisonClerkMaxwell’selectromagnetism.That department, which flourished under Post and did not survive long after his retire- ment, was designed to offer HPS courses to students with a good science degree. ThoseofuswhoobtainedourdoctoratesunderPost’sinfluenceliketothinkofour- selves as the ‘Chelsea School’, although the College has since been absorbed into Kings College, London. Included in our number are Noretta Koertge, John Pick- stone, Harvey Brown, Simon Saunders, Steven French, Harmke Kaminga, Giora Hon, and Eric Scerri. Our work bears witness to the influence of an inspirational teacher.PosthadaninterestinthemorerecenthistoryofatomismandIrecallthat hewasencouragedbyapublishertowriteabookonthetopic.Ithasbeenlefttome, hisgratefulstudent,toproducethatbookandIliketothinkthatitisonehewould haveendorsed. viii Preface SpecialthanksareduetoSandraGrimes.Hergenerousandconstantsupportand encouragement were not always received with the appreciation and acknowledge- menttheydeservedbyanirascibleandeasilyrattledauthor. Note 1. Iamamemberofagroupofseventeeninternationalscholarsbroughttogetherontheinitiative of John Norton at the University of Pittsburgh and Don Howard at the University of Notre Dameunderthebanner&HPS.Theaimistofostertheintegrationofhistoryandphilosophy of science in a way that lives up to the highest standards of both disciplines. To this end a conferenceisheldevery2yearsinvolvingpapersthatcanserveasexemplarsofhowthiscan bedone. Contents 1 Atomism:ScienceorPhilosophy? ................................ 1 1.1 Introduction .............................................. 1 1.2 ScienceandPhilosophyTranscendtheEvidenceforThem ....... 4 1.3 HowtheClaimsofScienceareConfirmed..................... 5 1.4 InferencetotheBestExplanation ............................ 8 1.5 ScienceInvolvesExperimentalActivity andConceptualInnovation.................................. 10 1.6 ReadingthePastintheLightofthePresent.................... 11 1.7 WritingHistoryofScienceBackwards........................ 12 1.8 TheStructureoftheBook................................... 13 1.9 ANoteonTerminology .................................... 17 2 DemocriteanAtomism ......................................... 19 2.1 PhilosophyastheRefinementofCommonSensebyReason...... 19 2.2 ParmenidesandtheDenialofChange......................... 21 2.3 TheAtomismofLeucippusandDemocritus:TheBasics......... 24 2.4 AtomicExplanationsofProperties ........................... 27 2.5 AtomicExplanationsofSpecificPhenomena................... 28 2.6 AtomismasaResponsetoZeno’sParadoxes................... 29 2.7 Aristotle’sCritiqueofIndivisibleMagnitudes .................. 33 2.8 Did Democritus Propose Indivisible Magnitudes asaResponsetoZeno? .................................... 34 2.9 DemocriteanAtomism:AnAppraisal......................... 38 3 HowdoesEpicurus’sGardenGrow? ............................. 43 3.1 Epicureanism ............................................. 43 3.2 PhysicalAtomsintheVoid.................................. 44 3.3 AtomsandIndivisibleMagnitudes ........................... 45 3.4 AtomicSpeedsandObservableSpeeds........................ 48 3.5 Gravity .................................................. 49 3.6 ExplainingthePhenomenabyAppealonlytoAtomsandVoid.... 51 ix
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