Revival: Philosophy and the Physicists (1937)

Lizzie Susan Stebbing

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351348058
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book is written by a philosopher for other philosophers and for that section of the reading public who buy in large quantities and, no doubt, devour with great earnestness the popular books written by scientists for their enlightenment. We common readers, to adapt a phrase from Samuel Johnson, are fitted neither to criticize physical theories not to decide what precisely are their implications.

We are dependent upon the scientists for an exposition of those developments which – so we find them proclaiming – have important and far-reaching consequences for philosophy. Unfortunately, however, our popular expositors do not always serve us very well. The two who are most widely read in this country are Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans. They are not always reliable guides. Their influence has been considerable upon the reading public, upon theologians, and upon preachers; they have even misled philosopher who should have known better. Accordingly, it has seemed to me to be worth while to examine in some detail the philosophical views that they have put forth and to criticize the grounds upon which these views are based.

Part I

THE ALARMING ASTRONOMERS

‘I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made.’

A. E. HOUSMAN

Chapter I

THE COMMON READER AND THE POPULARIZING SCIENTIST

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage that the universe has over him; of this the universe knows nothing.

PASCAL

THE age in which we are living is pre-eminently an age of scientific discovery. The advance of the sciences is not only rapid but also spectacular. A ‘new discovery’ in this, that, or the other, branch of science is not only ‘News’, it is even ‘Headline News’ The physical sciences, scarcely more than three centuries old, have in the last half-century so rapidly developed that the researches of the physicist and the chemist have profoundly altered for good or for ill the life of nearly every human being. Knowledge gives power; knowledge of natural occurrences has already given, increasing knowledge will continue to give, men power to alter and to control their environment in ways which, but a short time ago, would have seemed godlike or devilish. The boundaries between the natural sciences have to some extent broken down. The crystallographer, the biochemist, the physiologist, may pool their knowledge to give men health or to devise means of exterminating each other in a new and deadly warfare. There is no need to expatiate upon the changes brought into our lives by machines; these are sufficiently well known and inescapable. Nor is it necessary to emphasize ‘the shrinkage of the world’ due to more rapid means of communication by air travel and by wireless. Napoleon Bonaparte would no doubt be less bewildered fighting in the company of Edward I than as a general in the Italian Army to-day. That scientists can confer such power wins for them, intelligibly enough, great respect. At a time when the editors of daily newspapers invite film stars, financiers, popular novelists, and explorers to express their views on ‘the ultimate questions of life’, it is not surprising that eminent scientists should be urged to explain ‘the philosophic attitude to which their work has brought them’—to use the label attached to a series of ‘Interviews’ with scientists reported in the Observer some six years ago. Nor is it surprising that even the idle diversions of men of proved scientific attainments should carry weight with the common reader.

In these days of popular expositions, both written and broadcast, of Outlines, and of mammoth Guides to the Intelligent Man—guides through science, guides through economics, guides through philosophy, guides through chaos—the common reader cannot be unaware that the sciences in general and the physical sciences in particular have been developing rapidly and that in the course of this development certain changes, describable as ‘revolutionary’, have occurred. These developments in science have a twofold interest. First, their results have given us information, often surprising, about the world we live in. Secondly, the following out of scientific method is in itself exciting, affording us the purest of all satisfactions—intellectual satisfaction. There is among common readers a genuine interest in scientific research, a desire to follow as far as a layman can what is being found and to understand the implications of these findings. Some of us are prepared to attempt to make the considerable intellectual effort required in order to understand even a non-technical exposition of recent developments in physics. The writing of such an exposition is undoubtedly difficult. It requires not only great powers of exposition but also an apprehension of the sort of difficulties the layman is likely to find and the skill to surmount them. We can hardly complain if these matters are not made entirely clear to us. Nevertheless, there are not a few scientists who have written books that to some extent satisfy our needs.¹ Unfortunately, however, there are other famous scientists who do not seem to realize that their subject has an intrinsic interest for the common reader, and accordingly they seek to arouse his emotions, thereby inducing a frame of mind inimical to intellectual discernment. Popularizations of such a kind constitute a grave danger to thinking clearly. Possibly the authors themselves are at times wrought up to a pitch of emotional excitement, unduly impressed by the strangeness of their discoveries. I say ‘unduly impressed’ because, however strange may be the accounts of recent physical speculations, these physical speculations are themselves the development of the normal procedure of scientific method. The invention of new and more delicate scientific instruments has extended the physicist’s range of experience; fresh mathematical techniques have had to be devised to deal with the discoveries thus made. It must not, however, be too hastily assumed that these new instruments and these new mathematical devices constitute in themselves a radical transformation of the nature of our knowledge. Some of our scientific guides, writing in moments of emotional exaltation, have found it easier to mystify the common reader than to enlighten him.

Reflections such as these may well occur to anyone who meditates upon the popularity of the non-technical writings of Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans. Both are eminent in their own branch of science. Both are adepts at picturesque exposition. Sir Arthur Eddington is an original thinker of the first rank. Sir James Jeans has shown himself capable of writing lucid and straightforward accounts of our present astronomical knowledge. His books, The New Background of Science, The Stars in their Courses, and Through Space and Time, deserve to be ranked with Sir William Bragg’s well-known popular expositions—Concerning the Nature of Things and The Universe of Light—as admirably designed to inform the common reader. But neither Sir Arthur Eddington nor Sir James Jeans seems to care very much whether his method of presenting his views concerning the philosophical significance of physical theories may not make it more difficult, or even impossible, for the common reader to understand what exactly it is that has been said. Both these writers approach their task through an emotional fog; they present their views with an amount of personification and metaphor that reduces them to the level of revivalist preachers. Yet we common readers surely have a right to expect that a scientist setting out to discuss for our benefit philosophical problems arising from his special studies will do so in a scientific spirit. He would seem to be under a special obligation to avoid cheap emotionalism and specious appeals, and to write as clearly as the difficult nature of the subject-matter permits. Of this obligation Sir James Jeans seems to be totally unaware, whilst Sir Arthur Eddington, in his desire to be entertaining, befools the reader into a state of serious mental confusion. These are grave charges to make. It is the purpose of this chapter to attempt to substantiate them.

Both Eddington and Jeans¹ may seem to have forestalled such criticism. Replying to a critic, Eddington says, ‘Nontechnical books are very often a target for criticism simply because they are non-technical.’ He adds, ‘I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language. The author has abjured the technical terms and mathematical symbols which are the recognized means of securing exact expression, and he is thrown back on more indirect methods of awakening in the mind of the reader the thought which he wishes to convey. He will not always succeed. He can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader’ (N.P.Sc. 279). There is much truth in this statement, although Eddington does not show himself to be aware that exact thought cannot be conveyed in inexact language; at best it can be but partially conveyed, at worst the illusion will be created that it has been conveyed. Eddington seldom aids the reader in co-operating in determining how inexactly the thought has been conveyed. He contents himself with remarking that he must not be taken always to mean just what he says. The difficulties thus created for the reader will need to be discussed in detail in later chapters. Jeans does not seem ever to have noticed that his language is inexact, he appears to wish to defend himself from the charge of being a philosopher, thereby perhaps exempting himself from the duty of thinking rigorously. In his book, The Mysterious Universe, he sought ‘to provide useful material for the discussion of the ultimate philosophical problem’. In the last chapter of the book he presents his own conclusions. With regard to his fitness to discuss these problems he makes a point of saying: ‘I can claim no special qualifications beyond the proverbially advantageous position of the mere onlooker, I am not a philosopher either by training or by inclination.’ It may be true that the onlooker sees the best of the game, although he can hardly do so unless he knows the rules observed by the players. However that may be, it is absurd to assume, on the basis of this unsound analogy, that one who is not a philosopher either by training or by inclination is in a privileged position in the discussion of philosophical problems. Jeans would resent, and rightly resent, the claim of a philosopher who had no technical knowledge of astronomy to put forward discredited astronomical theories as if they were the outcome of the latest developments of the science. It is odd indeed that he does not seem to see that ‘a stranger in the realms of philosophy’ may make a fool of himself, if, having neither training nor inclination, he should try to enter therein. That a similar invasion of science on the part of a mere philosopher would be unwarranted he clearly recognizes. Having laid stress upon ‘the widespread conviction that the new teachings of astronomy and physical science are destined to produce an immense change on our outlook on the universe as a whole, and on our views as to the significance of human life,’ Jeans continues: ‘The question at issue is ultimately one for philosophic discussion, but before the philosophers have a right to speak, science ought first to be asked to tell all she can as to ascertained facts and provisional hypotheses. Then, and only then, may discussion legitimately pass into the realms of philosophy.’ This estimate of the relative positions of the scientist and the philosopher appears to be eminently just. Certainly there are philosophers who need to be reminded of it. There is, however, a certain obscurity—perhaps a certain disingenuousness—in the remark ‘science ought first to be asked to tell all she can’. It suggests a final and higher court of appeal. This suggestion is misleading. Science is not a goddess or a woman. We cannot ask science, but only scientists. Moreover, we must ask our questions of the scientist at a moment when he is in a scientific temper, capable of giving us ‘the ascertained facts and provisional hypotheses’ without any admixture of the emotional significance which he reads into these facts in his least scientific moods. The first chapter of The Mysterious Universe suggests that Jeans is not the guide of whom we are in need. This point must be stressed if we are to estimate correctly the philosophical value of his conclusions. Some typical passages should make this point clear.

Standing on our microscopic fragment of a grain of sand [i.e. the earth], we [i.e. human beings] attempt to discover the nature and purpose of the universe which surrounds our home in space and time. Our first impression is something akin to terror. We find the universe terrifying because of its vast meaningless distances, terrifying because of its inconceivably long vistas of time which dwarf human history to the twinkling of an eye, terrifying because of our extreme loneliness, and because of the material insignificance of our home in space—a millionth part of a grain of sand out of all the sea-sand in the world. But above all else, we find the universe terrifying because it appears to be indifferent to life like our own; emotion, ambition and achievement, art and religion all seem equally foreign to its plan. Perhaps we ought to say it appears to be actively hostile to life like our own (p.3).

The next paragraph continues:

Into such a universe we have stumbled, if not exactly by mistake, at least as the result of what may properly be described as an accident. The use of such a word need not imply any surprise that our earth exists, for accidents will happen, and if the universe goes on for long enough, every conceivable accident is likely to happen in time (p. 4).

A little further on, having suggested that ‘life may be merely an accidental consequence of the special set of laws by which the present universe is governed’, Jeans continues:

Again the word “accidental ” may be challenged. For what if the creator of the universe selected one special set of laws just because they led to the appearance of life? What if this were his way of creating life? So long as we think of the creator as a magnified man-like being, activated by feelings and interests like our own, the challenge cannot be met, except perhaps by the remark that, when such a creator has once been postulated, no argument can add much to what has already been assumed. If, however, we dismiss every trace of anthropomorphism from our minds, there remains no reason for supposing that the present laws were specially selected in order to produce life. They are just as likely, for instance, to have been selected in order to produce magnetism or radio-activity—indeed more likely, since to all appearances physics plays an incomparably greater part in the universe than biology. Viewed from a strictly material standpoint, the utter insignificance of life would seem to go far towards dispelling any idea that it forms a special interest of the Great Architect of the Universe (p. 10. Italics mine).

A study of these passages (and of others like them which abound in his writings) is enlightening both with regard to Jeans’s method of presenting his views and with regard to the reasons that have led him to adopt his philosophical conclusions. The reader can hardly fail to notice the emotional tone of the language used by Jeans, his sense of values, which is surely strangely perverted, and his confused, contradictory reasoning. Many devices are used apparently for no other purpose than to reduce the reader to a state of abject terror. In accordance with the temper of an age in which men admire size and material power, Jeans insists upon the magnitude of astronomical distances, upon the smallness of the earth, and upon the shortness of the span of human history. In his purely expository writings Jeans has made brilliant use of comparative estimates of size and of distance in order to elucidate astronomical facts. Now, however, the comparison is dwelt upon simply in order to make the reader feel his own feebleness and insignificance in the material universe. It is no doubt for the sake of intensifying this feeling that the vast distances with which the astronomer deals are said to be ‘meaningless’. Few readers are likely to pause to ask themselves whether a small distance would be meaningful. It is impossible to tell what answer Jeans would give, were he to be asked this question. Nowhere has he suggested a criterion for determining ‘meaning’ in relation to distances. Is it not absurd to suppose that a distance could be ‘meaningless’ or ‘meaningful’? Certainly it would be interesting to learn how Jeans has discovered that stellar distances are ‘meaningless’ and that stars are ‘lonely’. There is an extraordinary, but by no means uncommon, confusion in the picture of human beings standing on a microscopic fragment of sand whilst they attempt to discover the nature of the universe. There is an incongruity here, for we do not dissociate the human thinker from the normal size of man, i.e. the size stated in terms of measures and measuring rods invented and used by men. Nor does Jeans intend us to forget these measures. On the contrary, the pathos of the picture depends upon there being vaguely present to the reader’s mind the notion of a man clinging to too small a spar in a pathless ocean. If the earth is to be compared in size to a grain of sand, the human being must be correspondingly reduced in size.¹ Such a picture, drawn to scale, would not, however, suit the purpose of the passage. The value which Jeans so evidently attaches to greatness in size is used both to reduce the reader to a humble frame of mind and to terrify him. In my opinion such a sense of values is perverted.¹ The awe which Kant felt when he contemplated ‘the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Part I THE ALARMING ASTRONOMERS
• Part II THE PHYSICIST AND THE WORLD
• Part III CAUSALITY AND HUMAN FREEDOM
• Part IV THE CHANGED OUTLOOK
• INDEX