Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!dual!ucbvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-lymph!arndt From: arndt@lymph.DEC Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: What DID Whitehead say??? Message-ID: <3570@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 10:12:25 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.3570 Posted: Mon Aug 12 10:12:25 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 23:13:00 EDT Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 106 To Al Alqustyniak who said that "he should know better than to argue with Ken Arndt' over what Whitehead said about the rise of science vis a vis Christian belief: I had made the comment that "science as we know it rose only under the Christian world-view. A statement Whitehead, Oppenheimer and others have made as well." I've got the print out of it all somewhere in this great mess of stuff in my den here at home, but at this point it's exact location (and motion?) are known perhaps only to God. Al gave a quote from what he remembered as a statement from one of Whitehead's books he thought was called, "Science and Reality" to the effect that "science rose AGAINST the Christian world-view". Now he didn't give the reference but he asked me to look it up. Unless he's refering to a different Whitehead (not Lord Alfred North) I don't know what he is talking about. And he said he's leaving the net! So if anyone has contact with him, please forward my reply, as late as it is. Thanks. Could Al perhaps be refering to Whitehead's book PROCESS AND REALITY??? Especially the part "An Essay on Cosmology". It gives Whitehead's statement of his metaphysical philosophy but in very technical and hard to read style not the least because of his use of traditional terms in new ways. Alfred says in his book SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD, Mentor, '25, the first chapter entitled, "The Origins of Modern Science": (He points out the debt to Aristotle and then goes on to speak of the debt modern science owes to the Christian world-view.) "I do not think, however, that I have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement. I mean the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labours of scientists would be without hope. It is this instinctive conviction, vividly poised before the imagination, which is the motive power of research - that there is a secret, a secret which can be revealed. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted on the European mind?" "When we compare this tone of thought in Europe with the attitude of other civilizations when left to themselves, there seems but one source for its origin. It must come from the medieval insistance on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher. Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality. Remember that I am not talking of the explicit beliefs of a few individuals. What I mean is the impress on the European mind arising from the unquestioned faith of centuries. By this I mean the instinctive tone of thought and not a mere creed of words." "In Asia, the conceptions of God were of a being who was either too arbitrary or too impersonal for such ideas to have much effect on instinctive habits of mind. ANY DEFINITE OCCURRENCE MIGHT BE DUE TO THE FIAT OF AN IRRATIONAL DESPOT, OR MIGHT ISSUE FROM SOME IMPERSONAL, INSCRUTABLE ORIGIN OF THINGS. (italics mine) There was not the same confidence as in the intelligible rationality of a personal being. I am not arguing that the European trust in the scrutability of nature was logically justified even by its own theology. My only point is to understand how it arose. MY EXPLANATION IS THAT THE FAITH IN THE POSSIBILITY OF SCIENCE, GENERATED ANTECEDENTLY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SCIENCIFIC THEORY, IS AN UNCONSCIOUS DERIVATIVE FROM MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY." (again italics mine) Pg. 19 So as far as what Whitehead said, I just don't know what Al was talking about. I have previously mentioned a book by Stanley L. Jaki, SCIENCE AND CREATION, Science History Publications, NY, '74. He makes the same points as Whitehead above in MUCH detail covering many civilizations. See also his new book, (I've ordered it but haven't read it yet) UNEASY GENIUS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF PIERRE DUHEM. Duhem, a historian of science writing early in this century, traced the beginnings of modern physics back PAST Galileo and his teachers to CHRISTIAN teachers of the 1300s (Buridan) who formed the basis of Newton's First Law. By the way, Jaki has a very interesting article in the current National Review (Aug.23) entitled, "On Whose Side Is History?" in which he addresses these issues and mentions how Professor Needham (known to all who study the history of science), and a marxist, in writing his seven volume series on the history of science in China expected to account for it, or the lack of it, on the basis of a marxian interpretation to the effect that the feudal lords and their economy were the reason science did not flurish but died still born. However, by volume two Needham (1955) had reached a totally different conclusion! THE CHINESE OF OLD FAILED IN SCIENCE BECAUSE THEY HAD FAILED IN THEOLOGY!!! HAVING REJECTED, SOMETIME IN THE EARLY SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C., THEIR BELIEF IN A PERSONAL, RATIONAL, AND TRANSCENDENTAL CREATOR, A LAWGIVER, THE CHINESE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE ABILITY OF THE HUMAN MIND TO FATHOM THE LAWS OF NATURE!!! (italics mine) pg.41 Well, you get my drift. I could go on and on and quote chapter and verse on the topic but you too have libraries at your call. Remember, I am NOT saying one has to so believe in order to DO science NOW, merely (ha) that it appears - and is the conviction of a goodly number of very different people (Whitehead, Jaki, Needham for example) that basic beliefs of the CHRISTIAN FAITH uphold the assumptions modern science is founded upon. I would also say that any MEANING to come from our examination of the world through science must come from a 'religious' task, but that's another article, eh? I've already stated my conviction that science is at bottom a 'religious' venture and here I was trying to show that that's ACTUALLY how it started for modern science! Regards, Ken Arndt