Philosophy for Beginners

Richard Osborne and Ralph Edney (ill.)

Osborne, Richard; Ralph Edney (ill.);

Philosophy for Beginners
Writers and Readers Publishing, 1993, 186 pages
ISBN 086316157X, 9780863161575

topics: |  philosophy | history | comic

Short and pithy and humorous, this book provides a lightning sweep through
Western philosophy nonetheless.

While it is of course very shallow and incomplete, it still remains

one of the more useful summaries of philosophy I've read.
Closely followed in interestingness would be Russell's History of western
philosophy, but Russell is much more opinionated (q.v. his trashing of
Aristole's notion of "category").

The narrative runs through the key personalities in Western philosophy;

traces a history of the major ideas through brief bios (focusing on
eccentricities) of about 200 philosophers and groups. Samples many of the
key ideas and presents this in a humourous garb.

Opens with a cartoon on "how to recognize a philosopher in the street" - a

couple with baby in pram are observing a hooded cloaked man, walking
briskly by while reading a book. A feminist stance in an opening cartoon
about what is philosophy, and also in the closing section (post-Derrida).
Picks out the most interesting, and sharpest delineation of the ideas -
e.g. Kant's rationalist ethics - his Categorical Imperative, leads to the
conclusion that "To tell a falsehood to a murderer who asked us whether our
friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had taken refuge in our house, would be
a crime." It is these distilled gleanings that make it so un-put-downable
for a philosophy text - full of new, interesting ideas on every page,
though the illustrations are also great - e.g. see the picture of the
capital like a tongue awaiting its human morsels (p.104). - AM

Quotations

Sophists (just before Socrates) p.11:

Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things.

Essentially a practical man, Protagoras thought real knowledge was not
possible. What mattered was "useful opinion" == Deep skepticist position,
disagreements cannot be decided by an appeal to the truth. p.10

Socrates (470-399BC): An unexamined life is not worth living p.11

(ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthrôpôi)
[in Apology 38a, Plato - account of Socrates' trial,
Refusing to accept exile from Athens or a commitment to silence as
his penalty, he maintains that public discussion of the great
 issues of life and virtue is a necessary part of any valuable human
life.]
Knowledge is virtue - what makes man sin is lack of knowledge; overriding
cause of Evil was ignorance. [un-Christian stance in ethics]

Plato (428-354BC) :
Engraved on his academy: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here"

Hobbes, Leviathan: In "State of nature", "Man is a wolf to man", fighting

each other viciously for resources. But man is also rational, so they
renounce certain rights and form a social contract, and form a commonwealth w
a sovereign who is the "sum of the individuals". The ruler is absolute, and
Man has no right to rebel - p.87. This view opposed by

Locke: 2nd Treatise on Government, 1690 (attacking Hobbes)

"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every
one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult
it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty or possessions." - p.88

book excerptise:   a book unexamined is not worth having

History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the
Earliest Times to the Present Day

Bertrand Russell

Russell, Bertrand;
History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances
from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Simon and Schuster, 1945, 895 pages
ISBN 0671201581, 9780671201586

topics: |  philosophy | history

An amazing tour de force, where the complete opinionatedness of the author

does not detract from his complete mastery. For example, he ridicules
Aristotle as having caused irreparable harm to Western philosophy - by
achieving a high pedestal from which to keep fostering his faulty ideas.
Categories - what a category is Russell has never understood.

based on lectures at the Barnes foundation in Pennsylvania (preface).

Excerpts

XII: The influence of Sparta

What is important to the historian of the world is not the petty wars between
Greek cities, or the sordid squabbles for party ascendancy, but the memories
retained by mankind when the bried episode was ended. 101

SPARTA:
Lycurgus [so Plutarch says (North Translation)] thought the education of
children "the chiefest and greatest matter,
that a reformer of laws should establish"; and like all who aim chiefly at
military power, he was anxious to keep up the birth rate. The "plays,
sports, and dances the maids did naked before young men, were provocations to
draw and allure the young men to marry: not as persuaded by geometrical
reasons, as saith Plato, but brought to it by liking, and of very love."
The habit of treating a marriage, for the first few years, as if it were a
clandestine affair, "continued in both parties a still burning love, and a
new desire of the one to the other" -- such, at least, is the opinion of
Plutarch. He goes on to say that an old man, was not thought ill of
if he allowed his younger wife to have children by a younger man.
"It was lawful also for an honest man that loved another man's wife... to
intreat her husband to suffer him to lie with her, and that he might also
plough in that lusty ground, and cast abroad the seed of well-favoured
children." There was to be no foolish jealousy, for "Lycurgus did not like
that children should be private to any men, but that they should be common to
the commmon weal." goes on to explain that this is the principle that
farmers apply to their livestock. 102

XIII: The sources of Plato's opinions

Plato and Aristotle were the most influential. Plato had the greater effect
upon subsequent ages. I say this for two reasons; first, that A himself is
an outcome of P; second, that Christian theology and philosophy, at any rate
until the 13th c., was much more Platonic than Aristotelian.

Plato was born in 428-7 BC [in Athens] in the early ears of the Peloponnesian
War. He was a well-to-do aristocrat, related to various people who were
concerned in the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. He was a young man when Athens
was defeated [by Sparta], and he could attribute the defeat to democracy,
which his social position and his family connections were likely to make him
despise. He was a pupil of Socrates, for whom he had a profound affection
and respect; and S was put to death by the democracy. It is not, therefore,
surprising that he should turn to Sparta for an adumbration of his ideal
commonwealth [Utopia]. ... It has always been correct to praise Plato, but
not to understand him. This is the common fate of great men. My object is
the opposite. I wish to understand him, but to treat him with as little
reverence as if he were a contemporary... advocate of totalitarianism. 105

philosophical influences on Plato:

- Pythagoras (perhaps by way of S): Orphic elements; the religious trend, the
belief in immortality, the other-worldliness, the priestly tone, and all
that is involved in the simile of the cave; also his respect for
mathematics...
- Parmenides: reality is eternal and timeless, and that on logical grounds,
all change must be illusory.
- Heraclitus: the negative doctrine that there is nothing permanent in the
sensible world. This, combined with Parmenides, led to the conclusion
that knowledge is not to be derived from the senses, but only to be
achieved by the intellect. This, in turn, fitted in well with
 Pythagoreanism.
- Socrates: his preoccupation with ethical problems, and his tendency to seek
teleological rather than mechanical explanations of the world. "The Good"
dominated his thought more than that of the pre-Socratics, and it is
difficult not to attribute this fact to the influence of S.

Relation to totalitarianism:

1. Good and Reality being timeless, the best state

will be the one which most nearly copies the heavenly model, by having
minimum change and maximum of static perfection. [Sparta: laws changed very
little over the centuries, unlike most of the other city states].

2. Plato, like all mystics, has at his core a certainty which is essentially
incommunicable except by a way of life.
[IDEA: But this is true of the extreme liberal as much as the totalitarian]

3. Much education is needed to make a good ruler on Plato's principles. -->

implies an oligarchic view.

4. Leisure is essential to wisdom, which will therefore not be found among

those who have to work for their living... [aristocratic view]

Two q's arise when confronting Plato in the modern view. a. Is there such a
thing as "wisdom"? b. If there is such a thing, can any constitution be
devised that will give it political power
[3d. q. is "wisdom" a good thing, either for the indiv possessing it, or for
the state ruled by the wise?]

XIV: Plato's Utopia

Education: two parts: music (everything in the realm of the muses) +

gymnastics (all physical training). Aim is to create gentlemen (similar to
19th c England) --> aristocracy.

Homer and Hesiod are not to be allowed, for they show the gods
behaving badly on occasion. 109

decorum: no loud laughter, but Homer speaks of it: e.g. "The shout of them
that triumph, the song of them that feast," describing the joys of heaven.

Drama is to be banished. The good man ought to be unwilling to imitate a bad

man. [With all due honours], We shall send [the dramatist] to another city."

Censorship of music: Lydian and Ionian harmonies are to be forbidden. Only

Dorian (for courage) and Phrygian (for temperance) are allowed.

Training of the body: no one is to eat fish, or meat cooked otherwise than
roasted, and there must be no sauces or confectionery. People thus raised
will have no need of doctors. 110

small houses and simple food;

No private property beyond what is absolutely necessary.
No gold / jewelry.

Friends should have all things in common, including women and children. He
admits that this presents difficulties, but thinks them not insuperable.
Girls are to have the exactly same education as boys, including the art of
war. They will have complete equality. "The women shall be, without
exception, the common wives of these men, and no one shall have a wife of his
own."

Marriage: men and women conjoined by lottery

Men and women will be brought together by lot, but these lots will be
manipulated by the state on eugenic principles - the best sires will have the
most children. All children will be taken away from their parents at birth,
and great care shall be taken that the parents do not know who are their
children, or vice versa. Children arising from unions not sanctioned by the
State are illegitimate. Mothers are to be between 20 and 40; fathers between
25 and 45. [In Aristotle: marriage age: women: 18, men: 37; earlier marriage
results in weak and female children; wives become wanton and husbands stunted
in their growth. 185] 112

Lying is to be the prerogative of the government, just as giving medicine is

of physicians.

There is one "royal lie", set forth in considerable detail. The most
important part of it is that God has created men of three kinds: best to
worst made of gold, silver, and brass/iron. Those made of gold are fit to be
guardians; those made of silver should be soldiers, the others to do manual
work. Usually, but by no means always, children will belong to the same
grade as their parents; when they do not, they must be promoted or degraded
accordingly, it is hardly thought possible to make the present generation
believe in this myth, but the next, and all subseq generations, can be so
educated as not to doubt it. 113

The Republic is too humdrum

Justice (greek word so translated): that everybody should mind his own
business: the city is _just when trader, auxiliary, and guardian, each does
his own job without interfering with any of the other classes. 115

What will Plato's Republic achieve? The answer is rather humdrum. It will
achieve success in wars against roughly equal populations, and it will secure
a livelihood for a certain small number of people. It will almost certainly
produce no art or science... in this respect like Sparta. Skill in war and
enough to eat: Plato had lived through famine and defeat in Athens. 115

Difference between an "ideal" and an ordinary object of desire: Ideal is

impersonal - it is something having (at least ostensibly) no special
reference to the ego of the man who feels the desire, and therefore is
capable, theoretically, of being desired by everybody.
[Difficult discussion: personal choices enter the picture; e.g. someone says
that the good of the world is in the happiness of the Germans and the
unhappiness of all else. Do I reject it just because I am not a German and do
not intrinsically desire it? Nietzsche's impersonal hero differs from the
Christian saint - how are we to decide except by means of our own desire? If
there is nothing further, then ethical disagreement can only be decided by
emotional appeals. On q's of fact we can appeal to science and to
observation, but in ethics, ultimately there seems to be nothing
analogous... if this is the case, q's of ethics reduce to contests for
power, including propaganda power. 116

Justice / Ethics

This q arises in the Republic Book I, Thrasymachus, (a real person, sophist

from Chalcedon, appears in Aristophanes' first comedy, 427 BC). After S has
been amiably discussing justice w the old man Cephalus, and with Plato's
elder bro's Glaucon and Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, who has been listening with
growing impatience, breaks in with a vehement protest against such childish
nonsense - "Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger!"

At this point, religion has, at first sight, a simple answer. God determines
what is good and what bad. Problem: "God is good": then is there a standard of
goodness independent of God's will?

But Plato does not address this point: he is convinced that there is "the
Good", and that when people disagree, one of them is in the wrong, just as
there may be disagreement on facts such as snow is white, Caesar was
assassinated, or that water is H+O. 117

Plato's republic was not so fantastic or impossible as it might naturally

seem to us; many of its provisions, including some that we should have
thought quite impracticable, were actually implemented at Sparta. The rule
of philosophers had been attempted by Pythagoras, and in Plato's time
Archytas the Pythagorean was politically influenced in Taras (modern Taranto)
when Plato visited Sicily and southern Italy. It was common practice for
cities to employ a sage to draw up their laws; Solon had done this for Athens,
and Protagoras for Thurii. 118-119

Unfortunately for Plato, in the next gen, the rise of Macedonia made all
small States antiquated...

XV: THEORY OF IDEAS

The middle of the _Republic, introduces q's of pure philosophy with this
somewhat abrupt statement:

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the
spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in
one ... cities will never have rest from these evils...

If this is true, we must then decide what constitutes philosophy. The conseq
discussion is the most famous part of the Republic, and perhaps the most
influential. It has, in parts, extraordinary literary beauty; the reader may
disagree (as I do) with what is said, but cannot but help being moved by
it. 119

Plato's philosophy rests on the Distinction between reality and appearance,

first set forth by Parmenides. There is however, a religious tone about
reality, which is rather Pythagorean. The resulting doctrine was felt to be
satisfying to both the intellect and the religious emotions - influenced most
of the great philosophers, down to and incl Hegel. But not only
philosophers: why did the Puritans object to the music and painting and
gorgeous ritual of the Catholic Church? You will find the answer in book X
of the Republic.

What is a philosopher?

Our q is: what is a philosopher? A man who loves knowledge? But not in the
sense of mere vulgar curiosity... A philosopher is a man who loves the
"vision of truth".

Consider a man who loves beautiful things, makes a point of being present at
new tragedies, seeing new pictures, and hearing new music. Such a man is not
a philosopher, because he loves only beautiful things, whereas a philosopher
loves beauty itself. The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming,
whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is awake. The former has only
opinion, the latter has knowledge.

Diff between "knowledge" and "opinion": knowledge: knowledge of something -

something that exists. for that which does not exist is nothing. Thus
knowledge is infallible, since it is logically impossible for it to be
mistaken. But opinion can be mistaken- can be of what is not; if of what is,
it would be knowledge. Therefore, opinion must be of what both is and is
not.

This contradiction is possible because particular things always partake of

what is opposite: what is beautiful is also, in some respects, ugly; what is
just is also unjust, etc.

Theory of ideas or forms

Theory of "ideas" or "forms" - idea of great importance, not traceable to his

predecessors: Partly logical, partly metaphysical:

LOGICAL part: What do we mean by the word "cat"? Obviously something diff
from each particular cat. An animal is a cat, it would seem because it
participates in a general nature common to all cats. Lg cannot get on
without general words such as "cat", and such words are evidently not
meaningless. But if the word "cat" means anything, it means something
which is not this or that cat, but some kind of universal cattiness. This
is not born when a particular cat is, and does not die with it. It has no
position in team or space - it is "eternal". T

METAPHYSICAL PART: the word "cat" means a certain ideal cat, "_the cat",
created by God, and unique. Particular cats partake of the nature of _the
cat, but more or less imperfectly. It is only owing to this imperfection
that there can be many of them.

In the last book of the Rep, prior to a concemnation of painters, there is a

very clear exposition of the doctrine of ideas or forms.
e.g. though there are many beds, there is only one "idea" or "form" of a
bed. Just as a reflection of a bed != apparent, not real, so also, the
various particular beds are unreal, being only copies of the "idea", the real
bed, made by God. Of this one bed, there can be _knowledge, but in respect
to the many beds made by carpenters, there can only be _opinion.

Vision of Truth

Philosophy is not merely wisdom, but love of wisdom.

Intimate union of thought and feeling - Spinoza's "intellectual love of
God". Doers of any kind of creative work: experiences to a greater or lesser
degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth, or beauty,
appears or seems to appear, in a sudden glory. The experience is, at the
moment, very convincing; doubt may come later, but at the time there is utter
certainty. I think most of the best creative work, in art, in scienc,
literature and in philosophy, has been the result of such a moment. 123

Plato's vision, which he completely trusted at the time, needs ultimately the
help of a parable - of the cave.

prisoners in a cave: fire behind, and wall in front. Can only see the wall.
All they see are shadows of objects behind them - they regard shadows as
real, and have no notion of the objects themselves.
At last some man succeeds in escaping the cave and come out into the sunlight
- he sees real things, and becomes aware of the deception of the shadows. If
he is the sort of philosopher who is fit to become a guardian, he goes back
in the cave and tells his former fellow-prisoners about the truth. But he
will have difficulty convincing them, because coming out of the sunlight, he
will see the shadows less clearly than they do, and will consider them
stupider than before his escape. 125

The first theory to emphasize the theory of universals, which in varying

forms, has persisted to the present day. 126

Aristotle

In relation to physics, Aristotle's background was very different from

that of a modern student. Now-a-days, a boy begins with mechanics,
which, by its very name, suggests machines. He is accustomed to
motor-cars and aeroplanes; he does not, even in the dimmest recesses of
his subconscious imagination, think that a motor-car contains some sort
of horse in its inside, or that an aeroplane flies because its wings are
those of a bird possessing magical powers. Animals have lost their
importance in our imaginative pictures of the world, in which man stands
comparatively alone as master of a mainly lifeless and largely
subservient material environment. - p.203

[Russell comes down particularly hard on Aristotle's Logic, which while

a significant landmark in the evolution of western thought, had
fossilized it to such an extent that even now Catholic teacher's of
philosophy will still use nothing but Aristotle. The basic premise of
Aristotle's approach is several categories of syllogism, named Barbara,
Celarent, Darii, etc, but all a manifestation of Modus Ponems with
various types of quantification and negation. One of the fundamental
flaws is equating the structure of statements of the type "All Greeks are
men" and "Socrates is a man."]

Rome: History

[Rome, 2nd c. B.C.] A democratic movement, inaugrated by the Gracchi in

the latter half of the second century B.C., led to a series of civil
wars, and finally - as so often in Greece - to the establishment of a
"tyranny." - p.272

St Augustine

[Some very great books compose themselves], in the memory of those who have
read it, into something better than at first appears on rereading.
- of Augustine's City of God, p. 355

if all sin were punished on earth, there would be no need

of the Last Judgement. - p. 356
It must be admitted that SEXUAL INTERCOURSE in marriage is not sinful,
provided the intention is to beget offspring. Yet even in marriage a
virtuous man will wish that he could manage without lust. Even in
marriage, as the desire for privacy shows, people are ASHAMED of sexual
intercourse, because "this lawful act of nature is (from our first
parents) accompanied with our penal shame." ...What is shameful about
LUST is its independence of the will. Adam and Eve, before the fall,
could have had sexual intercourse without lust, though in fact they did
not. The need of lust in sexual intercourse is a punishment for Adam's
sin, but for which sex might have been divorced from pleasure. - 357-8
[IDEA: collection of views on SEX:SIN]

The Jewish pattern of history, past and future, is such as to make a powerful
appeal to the opressed and unfortunate at all times. Saint Augustine adapted
this pattern to Christianity, Marx to Socialism. To understand Marx
psychologically, one should use the following dictionary:
Yahweh = Dialectical Materialism
The Messiah = Marx
The Elect (who go to heaven) = The Proletariat
The Church = The Communist Party
The Second Coming = The Revolution
Hell = Punishment of the Capitalists
The Millennium = The Communist Commonwealth [p.364]

Spinoza: on freedom and bondage

We are in bondage in proportion as what happens to us is determined by

outside causes, and we are free in proportion as we are self-determined.
- Spinoza, Ethics (as interpreted by Russell, p.573)

Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding

Keith Ward
 Ward, Keith;
Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding
Oneworld 2006, Viva 2007 270 pages
ISBN 1851684468

topics: |  philosophy | religion | history | science

Review

Keith Ward discusses some of the conflicts between religion (Christianity)

and science (he teaches divinity at Gresham College London). Writing
cogently and readably, he shows how many stalwarts of modern science were
profoundly religious - his epynomous Pascal, and especially, Newton.

For many of us who grow up finding Newton in every textbook, it does not
seem that he would need to invoke God in his physics. He was of course, one
of the most brilliant scientists ever. He integrated scattered pieces of
ill-formulated knowledge previously known into the laws for motion and
gravitation and made significant advances to calculus to apply them to
terrestrial and cosmic problems.

Newton is in other words, an icon of determinism - the idea that things in

the world can be predicted from an initial state based on a set of laws.

Newton's recourse to God in mechanics

However, it turns out that Newton himself was no determinist.

Every science has its unexplained phenomena, and in Newton's work, he met
this when he considered the mutual forces in the moon-earth-sun system.

In December 1590, a lunar eclipse predicted by Tycho Brahe started earlier by

more than an hour. In his subsequent investigations, he found that at
times of syzygy (new or full moon), the sidereal velocity of the Moon
(against the background of stars) was faster than expected. On the other
hand, when it is in a phase perpendicular to the sun-earth line, its velocity
was slower than expected.

Newton was able to resolve Tycho's observations in the Principia. However,

he calls his solution “imperfect” (Preface to the first edition).

Proposition 66 of Book 1 of the "Principia" states:

Prop. 66: Let three bodies mutually attract each other under an
inverse-square law, with the two lesser ones (E) and (M) revolving
about the greatest one, (S). Then if the greatest body (S) is moved
by this action, the smaller inner body (M) will describe about the
larger inner body (E), by radii drawn to it, areas more nearly
proportional to the times, and a figure more closely resembling an
ellipse, than would be the case if the greatest body were not
attracted by the smaller ones, or were at rest.

This proposition is followed by 22 corollaries that describe the

perturbations of M caused by S, purely in prose, without giving the
calculations. Newton was considering the gravitational perturbations due to
the third body as a sequence of impulses, equally spaced in time, which
instantaneously alters the velocity of M. The results tally well with the
Variation (Astronomy) observed by Tycho Brahe.

The process involves solving for the motions xM, xE, xS, from three
coupled non-linear differential equations for the three bodies :

xM-dot-dot = Gforce due to mE + Gforce due to mS

xE-dot-dot = Gforce due to mS + Gforce due to mM
xS-dot-dot = Gforce due to mM + Gforce due to mE

where Gforce is the gravitational force (inverse-square law), and m are the
masses.

This is known as the three-body problem, and is hard to do analytically.

In Book 3 of the Principia, Propositions 25 to 35, Newton obtiains an
approximate solution.

The three-body problem

It is known now (since the 1890s) that no general solution could be found.
In fact, the problem has become one of the classic "difficult" problems in
classical mechanics. Some key steps in the history of this problem are:

* Lagrange in 1772, extending work by Euler, presented a constant-pattern

solution, based on a set of five points in the plane of E's
orbit around S, called the Lagrangian points L1 to L5.
 The medium mass E is orbiting about the heavier mass S. Objects close to E
exhibit nearly elliptic motion (e.g. moon), whereas objects orbiting the
heaviest mass S are affected by E and can have "horseshoe" orbits in the
S-E frame (e.g. the 150m asteroid 54509 YORP). Other objects that are
close to the L3/L4 may have "tadpole" orbits, (e.g. the 300 m asteroid
2010 TK7)

* In 1888, Heinrich Bruns showed that certain perturbations of the Lagrange

patterns can lead to divergence. a few years later, Poincare
generalized this to show that a general solution to the 3-body
problem cannot be obtained algebraically, though specific classes of
motions are possible under certain conditions.

* In 1911, William MacMillan found a special solution, later extended by K A

Sitnikov (1961). The system is one where the larger masses are equal and
orbit in a plane, while the smallest mass moves in a plane perpendicular to
these.
* In 2013, 13 new classes of solutions
were presented by Milovan Šuvakov and Veljko Dmitrašinović of Belgrade.

Solutions to the three-body problem, such as the "figure eight" and

"yarn," can be viewed on an abstract shape-sphere (top) or in real
space (bottom). image from sciencemag.org

Newton's approach

Thus, though he didn't know it, Newton was up against a tough problem.
Nonetheless, he was able to get a working solution for the Sun-Moon-Earth
system, which explained present observations adequately.

However, when he considered a system with more bodies (Jupiter, Mars,

Saturn, etc.) each of these interactions would be affected when any pair
would approach close. His pen and paper formulations were inadequate to
the task, and he appeared to have concluded that the planets should long
ago have either fallen into the Sun or flown off into outer space.

Yet the solar system appeared to be stable. So Newton concludes in Principia,

that God must occasionally step in to fix the system:

The six primary Planets are revolv'd about the Sun, in circles
concentric with the Sun, and with motions directed towards the same
parts, and almost in the same plane. . . . But it is not to be
 conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many
regular motions. . . . This most beautiful System of the Sun,
Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion
of an intelligent and powerful Being.

Is this recourse to a "God of the gaps" indicative of a form of

egocentricism? Is it saying that "our theory is infallible", so there must
be a divine explanation?

The recourse to God is based on the assumption that our ideas and
calculations can't be wrong - and the only explanation left must be that a
God is fixing it. In the case of Newton, of course, he had a strong belief
in divine powers and the occult, but still this is the only point where he
invokes God in mechanics, so we must wonder about it...

Recourse to God

Newton is such a hero of science, that the fact that the very idea that he
may have suggested that God comes in from time to time to set the planets
in order seems preposterous.

Today similar recourses to religion are taken by many when encountering a

phenomenon that science has not been able to solve, so far.

The challenge to religion started with the outside world, but after Darwin,
new challenges emerged re: the origins of man in the sphere of evolution.
However, the attempt to re-cast religion in the light of present scientific
theories raises questions about the fundamental validity of the God theory
that has to be reformulated keeping some kind of a core notion intact while
giving up on some of the contradictions. - AM

Excerpts

God was declared dead in 1883 by Friedrich Nietzsche. God may have been
killed by many things, but a major suspect was science. 1

In many traditional relig views, human beings are the most important things
in the universe, and the whole of nature is created to serve humans.
After Galileo, that view was turned completely on its head.

The legend has grown up that Galileo was the first and decisive battle
between science and religion. Galileo certainly won the battle, so some
popular histories of sci depict the story as the beginning of the death of
God and the triumph of materialism. 8
Copernicus, Polish catholic: On the revelations of the heavenly spheres,
1543, the year of his death. dedicated to Pope Paul III, carrying an
endorsement by the local cardinal. Little public reaction.

Heliocentrism is heretical: Galileo

However, in 1616, [60 years later] consultants to the Congregation of the

Holy Office [the Inquisition] declared that the heliocentric hypothesis was
formally heretical.

When Galileo later re-affirmed the Copernican hypothesis in a very combative

way, an affronted scientific establishment took action. G was convicted in
1633 and placed under house arrest, where he remained till his death nine
years later.

The conflict however, was not so much between Christian faith and the
Copernican view that the earth circles the sun, as between established
Aristotelian science and the 'new science' of close observation and
experiment that was threatening the old scientific elite. 9

The Catholic Church assoc itself firmly with the authority of Aristotle, who
was taken to be mastere of all sci (except theology, where he needed to be
corrected by Thomas Aquinas, the 'angelic doctor'). Aristotle's concepts of
substance and accident, form and matter, act and potency had been used in
framing doctrines like that of transubstantiation and ideas of God. His
system of the four types of causality: material, formal, efficient, and
final, was accepted as the proper framework for natural science. 9

Note: Aristotle himself was a major revision of the Bible - Archbishop of

Paris prohibited Aristotle in the 13th c. 10

TRANSUBSTANTIATION: the Roman Catholic doctrine that the whole substance of

the bread and the wine changes into the substance of the body and
blood of Christ when consecrated in the Eucharist

see also: Douglas Adams on Gallileo and the Vatican

what the Vatican said to Gallileo was, "We don't dispute your
readings, we just dispute the explanation you put on
them. It's all very well for you to say that the planets sort
of do that as they go round and it is as if we were a planet
and those planets were all going round the sun; it's alright
to say it's as if that were happening, but you're not allowed
to say that's what is happening, because we have a total
lockhold on universal truth and also it simply strains our
personal credulity".

Reconciling with science

One move to reconcile science is to say that statements in the Bible are not
literal, but metaphorical. The Church has long been used to interpreting
Biblical statements abt God metaphorically. God does not literally "trample
on the nations" (Habakkuk 3:12). ... Saying that the universe was created in
six days, for instance, had usually been taken metaphorically. 11
Cardinal Bellarmine, writing in 1616 to Galileo's friend Foscarini, saw this
possibility:

I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not
revolve around the earth, but the earth around the sun, then it will
be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of
passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should
rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be
false which is demonstrated. 11

Humans removed from centre of the universe

Aquinas: everything in creation ultimately existed 'for the sake of man' 13

Are we the only form of "intelligent life" in the universe? If so, Though
phys not in centre, we may still be the most "advanced" species, so we still
remain at the center of God's love.

As the physicist Enrico Fermi asked, "Why aren't the aliens here?"
Since some stars are billions of years old, some other intelligent forms may
have evolved elsewhere long before us... 14

* Martin Rees: Our cosmic habitat, Princeton U Press, 2001 15

Far future: In a std picture of the very far future, the universe wd be a
dilute and ever-diminishing soup of extremely low-energy photons, neutrinos,
and gravitons moving virtually freely thru a slowly expanding space. 15

Modern sci seems to sugg that the existence of humans is a freakish

accident. 17

But probab of humans, based on the God premise, is higher than that based on
the sci premise. 18

Was it really worth billions of years of cosmic evolution just to produce

Lalu Yadav? 19 [(orig.) was Tony Blair]

Biggest objection to God: why "bad" things happen? This is why some
scientists will accept the existence of a super-intelligence, but remain
sceptical abt whether it is good or benevolent. 20

The intellectual beauty of being

Newtonian revolution was to see nature as the intelligible product of one

rational and elegant cosmic mind. This later gave rise to the idea of nature
as an impersonal machine, whose laws are absolute, fixed, and
all-explaining. For N however, the laws of nature demonstrate the presence
and power of one supreme God of immense wisdom, intelligence, and spiritual
purpose. For N, science is a spiritual enterprise, seeking greater
understanding of the wisdom of God. 24
2.3. Kant: Freedom and Determinism

Influenced by Newton, believed that all events have a suff and determining
cause, i.e., given its antecedent physical state and the laws of nature, each
event happens by necessity; there is no alternative to it, and it has to be
just what it is. [LAW OF PHYSICAL DETERMINISM]

Then how can there be moral freedom / autonomy? Kant himself was forced into
the desperate expedient of saying that I am morally free ion the noumenal
world (the world of things as they really are, which I can never know by the
senses or by obsvn), whereas I am wholly determined in the phenomenal world
(the world of the senses and of physical science). 28

Many philosophers are, like Kant, 'compatibilists' -- they think we must

believe in both physical determinism as well as freewill. 29

Ridley, Matt, Genome 1999: There is no such thing as evolutionary

progress... The black-smoker bacterium [that inhabits sulphurous vents in the
Atlantic seabed] is arguably more highly evolved than the bank clerk (p.25)

Kant felt that to be morally responsible, I must be able to do what is right

or not do it. Nothing must determine my choice between those alternative
paths except my own decision. While my decision can be influenced by many
factors, I am free to do something not determined_ by any past event or law
of nature. [RADICAL FREEDOM: action undetermined by any prior physical
cause.] 29

Kant: people were responsible even for the places and circs in which they
were born. Once born, they were determined by laws - but they had freely
chosen the circs of their birth. 29

Newton's "God hypothesis"

Newton himself did not believe in determinism. He believed that God would
have to act in the universe at rare intervals to keep the planets in stable
orbits around the sun. Otherwise, they would after a very long period of
time fall out of their orbits into the sun. It is this hypothesis that
Laplace referred to when he is alleged to have told Napoleon: I have no need
of that hypothesis.

Laplace had refined the Newtonian calculus so that more precisely

formulated equations of motion could dispense with the need for divine
intervention. Thereby he got rid of what the Cambridge mathematician
A.C. Coulson called the "God of the gaps" [Coulson: Science and Christian
Belief, 1958]
It was partially Laplace's success in showing that such a God was not needed
that gave impetus to the hypothesis of physical determinism. 30

Aside: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Newton's God Hypothesis

The Perimeter of Ignorance :

A boundary where scientists face a choice: invoke a deity or continue the quest for knowledge
From Natural History magazine, Nov 2005

Newton's law of gravity enables you to calculate the force of attraction

between any two objects. If you introduce a third object, then each one
attracts the other two, and the orbits they trace become much harder to
compute. Add another object, and another, and another, and soon you have the
planets in our solar system. Earth and the Sun pull on each other, but
Jupiter also pulls on Earth, Saturn pulls on Earth, Mars pulls on Earth,
Jupiter pulls on Saturn, Saturn pulls on Mars, and on and on.

Newton feared that all this pulling would render the orbits in the solar
system unstable. His equations indicated that the planets should long ago
have either fallen into the Sun or flown the coop — leaving the Sun, in either
case, devoid of planets. Yet the solar system, as well as the larger cosmos,
appeared to be the very model of order and durability. So Newton, in his
greatest work, the Principia, concludes that God must occasionally step in
and make things right:

The six primary Planets are revolv'd about the Sun, in circles concentric
with the Sun, and with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost
in the same plane. . . . But it is not to be conceived that mere
mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions. . . . This
most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed
from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
And lest the systems of the fixed Stars should, by their gravity, fall
on each other mutually, he hath placed those Systems at immense
distances from one another.
[Principia, General Scholium, end of Book 3. p.1157 in Hawking,
[hawking-2003-on-shoulders-of|Shoulder of Giants, also, wikisource.]

In the Principia, Newton distinguishes between hypotheses and experimental

philosophy, and declares, "Hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical,
whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental
philosophy." What he wants is data, "inferr'd from the phenomena." But in the
absence of data, at the border between what he could explain and what he
could only honor — the causes he could identify and those he could not—
Newton rapturously invokes God:

Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; . . . he governs all

things, and knows all things that are or can be done. . . . We know him
only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final
causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him
on account of his dominion.

A century later, the French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon de

Laplace confronted Newton's dilemma of unstable orbits head-on. Rather than
view the mysterious stability of the solar system as the unknowable work of
God, Laplace declared it a scientific challenge. In his multipart
masterpiece, Mecanique Celeste, the first volume of which appeared in 1798,
Laplace demonstrates that the solar system is stable over periods of time
longer than Newton could predict. To do so, Laplace pioneered a new kind of
mathematics called perturbation theory, which enabled him to examine the
cumulative effects of many small forces.

According to an oft-repeated but probably embellished account, when

 Laplace gave a copy of Mecanique Celeste to his physics-literate
friend Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon asked him what role God played in
the construction and regulation of the heavens. "Sire," Laplace
replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis."

Additional matter, also by Tyson, from

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/going-ballistic

Modern analysis demonstrates that on timescales of hundreds of

millions of years—periods much longer than the ones considered by
Laplace—planetary orbits are chaotic. That leaves Mercury vulnerable
to falling into the Sun, and Pluto vulnerable to getting flung out of
the solar system altogether. Worse yet, the solar system might have
been born with dozens of other planets, most of them now long lost to
interstellar space. And it all started with Copernicus's simple
circles.

Does God obey Newton's laws?

God is still the author of the laws of nature, though even God is no longer
allowed to act in ways that "break" the laws. Newton never accepted that the
laws are absolute in this way. Though we can write eqns to descr these laws,
in what sense do such laws "exist" even before physical objects exist? Or
what makes these laws applicable to all objects in space, without exception?

Newton's answer: The laws exist in the mind of God even before creation. God
could compel planets to conform to such laws (or not, as God chose). But if
God is removed, the laws of nature and the apparently necessary conformity of
physical objects to them becomes highly improbable and inexplicable. 30
[IDEA: Same problem remains with any theory - if X is the ultimate
explanation, we can always ask, "why X"? ]

Newton found it difficult to comprehend the force of gravity, though he had

virtually discovered it: That one body may act upon another at a distance
through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else ... is to me so great
an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a
competent faculty for thinking, can ever fall into.
[Principia Mathematica tr Cohen / Whitman p. 943] 31

Newton wrote extensively on Hermetic philosophy and alchemy, and a long and
boring commentary on the prophecies in the Book of Daniel. 32
Westfall: Never at Rest: A biog of Isaac N 1980,
Mordechai Feingold: The Newtonian moment (beautifully produced
descripn of his cultural context).

Evolution and Religion

25 parameters such that values must fall within some range for life to
exist. [Hugh Ross, Creator and Cosmos, Navpress, 1993] p. 37

Biggest challenge from modern sci to religion is evolution.

But evoln can with equal plausibility be seen as a supremely elegant process
directed to goals of intrinsic value. 49

Evolutionary theory, with less sci evidence, existed well before Darwin -
e.g. his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, 1801: All nature exists in a state of
perpetual improvement ... the world may still be said to be in its infancy,
and continue to improve for ever and ever'. [Zoonomia, Johnson, 1801, v.2,
p. 318) 50

Common belief in many traditional religions: Age of innocence, without

suffering or death - degraded into present corrupt state. Evolutionary
theory reverses this judgment. 53
[Does it? What is "suffering" - has it reduced? Is the bacterium not a
"happier" organism? ]

Advances in morality in some societies : e.g. in attitudes to women, slaves,

and animals. 53
[Are these advances?]

Pensees and Pascal's wager

Pascal's Wager applies decision theory to the belief in God. The

basic argument is that though the existence of God cannot be determined
through reason, a person should "wager" as though God exists, because
living thus, he has everything to gain, and should God not exist, he has
not much to lose.

Before Pascal's death at age 39, he was working on a text defending

Christian beliefs. This was published later as Pensees (lit. "thoughts),
and the wager appears as Article 233 in Pensees.

Earlier, he laments man's uncertain position w.r.t. God:

If I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I

saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in
faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I
am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a God
sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity.[229]

then he measures the outcomes of believing in the two sides of this

uncertainty :

Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God,

but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith,
and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief,
and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like
you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who
know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of
which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by
acting as if they believed, bless yourself with holy water, have
Masses said, and so on; by a simple and natural process this will make
you believe, and will dull you — will quiet your proudly critical
intellect...
 Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be
faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend,
truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory
and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you
will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on
this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much
nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you
have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have
given nothing. [233]

Variations of this argument may be found in other religious philosophies,

such as Islam (al-Juwayni), and Hinduism (Vararuchi).

Blaise Pascal, _Pensees_, 1660, tr W. F. Trotter