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CAUSALITY and SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION VOLUME ONE Medieval and Early Classical Science

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CAUSALITY and SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION VOLUME ONE Medieval and Early Classical Science NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/causalityscienti0002wall CAUSALITY AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION VOLUME ONE Medieval and Early Classical Science VOLUME TWO Classical and Contemporary Science Causality and Scientific Explanation William A. Wallace VOLUME TWO Classical and Contemporary Science Ann Arbor The University of Michigan Press Copyright © by The University of Michigan 1974 All rights reserved ISBN 0-472-08951-X Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 72-83969 Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press and simultaneously in Don Mills, Canada, by Longman Canada Limited Manufactured in the United States of America The first volume of this work portrays the two concepts of causality and explanation as central to the development of science from its medieval precursors to its classical founders. This second and concluding volume exhibits the same con¬ cepts as the focal point of continuing debate among philoso¬ phers and methodologists of classical as well as contemporary science. The proximate inspiration behind both volumes is a difference of opinion that has begun to manifest itself between logically minded and historically minded scholars, the first of whom make stronger claims for rationality and objectivity in science than do the second, but neither of whom seem able to justify any cumulative growth of knowledge within the scientific enterprise. The work itself seeks such a justifica¬ tion through a historical examination and reinstatement of the dual concept of causal explanation. Its central thesis is that the search for causal explanations has provided, and continues to provide, a reliable paradigm of scientific method from its origins in the late Middle Ages down to the present day. The first volume begins with an introductory chapter that poses the contemporary problematic and traces its source back to the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. It then concen¬ trates, in Part I, on medieval science to document the impact of the Analytics at the universities of Oxford, Paris, and Padua from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The three chap- < . A- VI Preface ters that make up this part constitute the major portion of the volume. In addition to providing illustrative material for later analysis, they attempt to evaluate the rival claims of historians of science as to the importance of these centers for the genesis of modern experimental method. Part II builds on this base and is devoted to early classical science, being concerned with its founders from William Gilbert to Isaac Newton. It stresses elements of methodological continuity between the medievals and early modern scientists and shows the surprising use of causal concepts made by the latter in their own, now classical, contributions. This second volume is likewise divided into two parts, • the first of which may be regarded as a continuation of, and complement to, the second part of the previous volume, since both are concerned essentially with the classical sci¬ ence of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth cen¬ turies. Whereas the treatment in the previous volume, how¬ ever, concentrated on the founders of modern science — viz., Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey, and Newton — the first part of this volume is concerned with its philosophers and methodologists. The two chapters that make up Part I are thus devoted to philosophical and methodological discus¬ sions that reflect the changing status of causal concepts to the latter part of the nineteenth century. Part II then turns at¬ tention to contemporary science and devotes three chapters to this most recent period of science’s history. Chapter 3 analyzes the problems that led to “the decline and fall of caus¬ ality” and surveys the philosophical confusion that attended the emergence of twentieth-century science from the ruins of classical science, while still searching for a methodology that would justify its results. The final chapters propose a nuanced interpretation of causality as related to scientific explanation that allows, on the one hand, for the possibility of cumulative growth of knowledge within science generally and, on the other, for the solution of special problems such as those aris¬ ing within the relativity and quantum theories that led to the demise of the classical causal concept. In this, as in the previous volume, I have given all cita¬ tions from primary sources in English, from standard transla¬ tions when available, otherwise in my own translation. Gen- Preface vii erally in citing early British authors I have modernized Eng¬ lish spelling and punctuation, and occasionally I have modi¬ fied or adapted existing translations on the basis of my own reading of the text. My debts are the same as those noted in the first volume. In a special way, however, I wish to thank Peter A. Bowman and John M. Donahue for their careful reading of both vol¬ umes, John F. Wippel for his helpful suggestions with regard to the first volume, and Edward H. Madden and Ernest Nagel for their constructive criticisms relating to the second. None of these, I am sure, would wish to assume responsibility for everything stated herein, and yet their thoughtful comments have aided me considerably in clarifying my position and eliminating errors of fact and interpretation. Finally, it would be ungracious of me not to acknowledge the continued as¬ sistance of the National Science Foundation, without whose research grants the work would never have been accom¬ plished. William A. Wallace February 4, 1973 Washington, D.C. Contents VOLUME TWO Part 1. Classical Science: Philosophy and Methodology Chapter i. The Philosophers of Classical Science 3 1. Rene Descartes 5 2. Thomas Hobbes 17 3. John Locke 22 4. George Berkeley 30 5. David Hume 38 a. The Notion of Causation 40 b. Thomas Reid’s Critique 44 6. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 51 7. Immanuel Kant 60 a. Early Writings 62 b. Critical Period 64 c. Metaphysical Foundations 70 % Chapter 2. The Methodologists of Classical Science 76 1. Francis Bacon 77 2. Auguste Comte 86 3. John F. W. Herschel 96 a. General Methodology 98 X Contents b. Applications and Examples no 4. William Whewell 118 5. John Stuart Mill 128 6. Claude Bernard 141 7. Recapitulation 154 Part II. Contemporary Science Chapter 3. The Changing Status of Causality 163 1. The Decline and Fall of Causality 165 a. Probability vs. Certainty 166 b. Phenomenalism and Conventionalism 168 c. Logical Positivism 180 d. Operationalism and the Copenhagen School 187 2. The Concern With Explanation 197 a. Theories as Explanations 198 b. The Covering-Law Model 202 c. Answers to the Question “Why?” 206 3. The Anti-Humean Turn 217 a. Process and Metaphysics 218 b. Beyond Phenomenalism 222 c. The Return to Realism 228 Chapter 4. The Varieties of Causal Explanation 238 1. Preclassical Themes 243 a. Types of Explanation 244 b. Causal Definitions 249 2. Classical Themes 254 a. Causal Reasoning 255 b. Mechanisms and Models 257 3. Contemporary Themes 264 a. Causal Theories 265 b. Causal Laws 271 Chapter 5. Causality in Contemporary Science 277 1. The Physical Sciences 283 a. Relativity Theories 283 b. Quantum Theories 297 Contents xi 2. The Life and Social Sciences 308 a. Evolution 309 b. Human Behavior 318 Epilogue 323 Notes 327 Bibliography 379 Index 399 Part One Classical Science: Philosophy and Methodology CHAPTER ONE The Philosophers of Classical Science It is somewhat anachronistic to propose to separate the phi¬ losophers of classical science from its founders, particularly when one considers that such science had its origin as a fur¬ ther articulation of natural philosophy, and thus that each scientist had as much claim to the title of philosopher as any other. With the perspective provided by the intervening cen¬ turies, however, it is possible to identify those thinkers who devoted themselves more consistently to themes now recog¬ nized as philosophical, and particularly those who reflected on the epistemological and ontological problems raised by the new science. With regard to the concept of causality, for example, the work of David Hume and Immanuel Kant was inspired by, and remained closely associated with, the scien¬ tific enterprise; at the same time it had a profound influence on the future development of philosophy. And although these two figures emerge as central in contemporary discussions of causality, their work was not done in a vacuum but was pre¬ pared for by others who attempted to supply a philosophy for the new science, and thus contributed to a developing under¬ standing of causal explanation. It will be the concern of the present chapter to sketch the main ideas of such philosophers of the seventeenth and eigh- 3 4 The Philosophers of Classical Science teenth centuries. In assessing their role in this development, attention will be centered mainly on the place of causality in scientific explanation, on the attitude toward demonstrative reasoning and the certitude it engenders, on distinctive meth¬ odologies, and, in the case of those who made significant sci¬ entific contributions such as Descartes and Leibniz, on the methodology by which they achieved their results. No at¬ tempt will be made to duplicate the standard treatments of these men in histories of philosophy, since our study has a quite different aim. The dichotomous division of philosophers into rationalists and empiricists, for example, while of system¬ atic value,
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