Use of Theses

THESES SIS/LIBRARY TELEPHONE: +61 2 6125 4631 R.G. MENZIES LIBRARY BUILDING NO:2 FACSIMILE: +61 2 6125 4063 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY EMAIL: [email protected] CANBERRA ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA USE OF THESES This copy is supplied for purposes of private study and research only. Passages from the thesis may not be copied or closely paraphrased without the written consent of the author. ASPECTS OF WILLIAM WHEWELL'S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE by Dennis R. Murray. A thesis submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts The Department of Philosophy (School of General Studies) The Australian National University June 1974. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Richard Campbell of the School of Philosophy (General Studies) in the Australian National University, and to the staff of the School of the History and Philosophy of Science in the University of New South Wales, for their advice and encouragement in the preparation of this study. "Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow." from "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot CONTENTS Abbreviations i Preface ii Chapter One THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF WHEWELL'S THOUGHT 7 1. Whewell's Life and Writings 7 2. General Outline of Whewell's Philosophical Views 16 Chapter Two NECESSARY TRUTH 23 Chapter Three INDUCTION 43 1. The Clarification of the Elements of Knowledge by Analysis 45 2. The Colligation of Facts by Means of a Conception 48 i) Colligation as the type of Induction 49 ii) Mill's Criticism 52 3. Verification of the Colligation 61 i) Three Criteria 61 ii) The11Logic of Induction" 65 Chapter Four "THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY" 75 1. The Problem Stated 75 2. Whewell's notion of the Fund- amental Antithesis 80 i) The Terms of the Antithesis are Not Clearly Disting- uishable 81 ii) The Terms of the Antithesis are Distinct 84 3. Whewell's Solution to "The Ultimate Problem of All Philo- sophy" 89 4. The Rejection of Shelling and Hegel 95 5. Facts 101 I . ... Chapter Five WHEWELL AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IDEALIST MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN 114 1. "Idealism" 116 2. James Frederick Ferrier and John Grote 124 3. Edward Caird and Thomas Hill Green 134 Recapitulation and Conclusion 145 Appendix 147 Booklist 152 (i) ABBREVIATIONS PISl The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 2 Vols, 1st ed., 1840. PIS2 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 2 Vols, 2nd ed., 1847. NOR Novum Organon Renovatum, 1858. PD On the Philosophy of Discovery, 1860. FAl "On the Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy",l844. FA2 "Second Memoir on the Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy", 1848. OI Of Induction, With Especial Reference to Mr. J. Stuart Mill's System of Logic, 1849. ROAR "Remarks on a Review", A Letter to Sir John F.W. Herschel, Bart. (April 11, 1844). HSI The History of Scientific Ideas, 2 Vols, 1858. NTLM "On the Nature of the Truth of the Laws of Motion",l834. RH "Review of Herschel's A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy", 1831. CAAI "Criticism of Aristotle 1 s Account of Induction" ,1850. PW An Essay and a Dialogue on the Plurality of Worlds,l854. HCNP "On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's Principia" ,1849. Note: For full details of these works consult the booklist below, pl52f. (ii) PREFACE The name of William Whewell is certainly more familiar to most philosophers nowadays than it was a few years ago. No longer merely regarded as an opponent of Mill, Whewell, over a period of recent years,1 has emerged as a philosopher of merit in his own right. Indeed this latest judgement has now proceeded to the point where an influential modern thinker can claim in a major work that "throughout this book the view is being maintained that theory can fruitfully be looked upon as the imaginative construction of models accord- ing to well-chosen principles, and that, in many ways, the theory of "Ideas" in Whewell's sense, is more helpful in the theory of theories and scientific method generally, than the logic of statements". 2 The favour with which aspects of Whewell's thought are being greeted in some quarters, as an aid in the construction of an alternative philosophy of science to that represented by the tradition of Mill, is a noteworthy phenomenon. Its explanation, however, would be a large task involving no less than a critical summation of the whole of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British philosophy up until the present. Such a task is obviously beyond the scope of this thesis. Yet if any such summation were to be undertaken in the future, the problem of the historical status of Whewell's philosophy within 1. The contemporary literature on Whewell begins with the appear ance of two articles by C.J. Ducasse in Phil Rev, 60 (1951), reprinted in Blake, Ducasse, and Madden (ed).:Theories of Scientific Method. 2. Harre,R.: The Principles of Scientific Thinking, p42. (iii) its own Century would be an issue of importance. This thesis, therefore, is an attempt to place Whewell's thought within the context of Nineteenth Century philosophical problems and issues, particularly as they are related to matters of science. Consequently, it is more inclined to be a history, though a critical one, than an attempt at direct philosophising. Such a history is required, apart from the intrinsic interest of the topic itself, by any attempt to take the overview of Nine teenth and Twentieth Century British philosophy that has been suggested. This is particularly the case in connection with the problems which Whewell 1 s philosophy, as a species of Kant's, could not solve in its own day, and which continue to trouble philosophers who look back favourably in the direction of Kant. As a history, the thesis opens in Chapter I with a sketch of Whewell's life, followed by a general state ment of the motives and intentions of Whewell's philosophical stance. Chapters II and III treat in turn the two pillars of Whewell's thinking, necessary truth and induction, and trace his attempts to reconcile his particular viewpoints on each. The problems associated with this reconciliation are brought out most fully in Chapter IV, and the Final Chapter deals with the fate of Whewell's philosophy, conditioned as it was by the problems which it faced, during the later Nineteenth Century. CHAPTER ONE THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF WHEWELL'S THOUGHT 1. WHEWELL'S LIFE AND WRITINGS Whewell's career and interests can be traced through several stages which, though they overlap, are well defined. It will be seen that Whewell's early academic concerns were with research in mathematics and the natural sciences, and that it was in these fields that he first established himself as a man of considerable ability. It will become clear, however, that as Whewell's life progressed, his academic and professional circumstances and his intellect- ual interests were changing, although, not surprisingly perhaps, they were undergoing a parallel development. The most import- ant aspect of this for an understanding of Whewell's thought is the shift which occurred in his interests at about the middle of his life, and which took him away from a first-hand acquaintance with scientific research, and led him more towards the history and philosophy of science, a trend which was continued and accentuated throughout the remainder of Whewell's life, and which ultimately brought him into the regions of general philosophy and ethics. William Whewell was born in Lancaster on May 24th, 1794. The eldest child of a carpenter, he showed 2. an early aptitude for mathematics, and through the efforts of a local clergyman was sent to Lancaster grammar school and later to nearby Heversham in preparation for taking the matriculation examination for Trinity College, Cam bridge. He seems to have been an excellent student, show ing a keen interest not only in mathematics but in classics as well. In October 1812 he was entered at Trinity, thus beginning his lifelong association with the College and the University. From the time of his entry Whewell's academic success was unimperilled. In 1814 he gained the Chancellor's Medal for English poetry and in 1816 took his B.A. as second wrangler, although it had been anticipated that we would be senior. Upon taking his degree, and in accord with common practice, he tutored privately for several years. Meanwhile, in October 1817 he became a Fellow of Trinity, and in the next year was appointed assist ant Tutor, as well as a lecturer in mathematics at the College. He took his M.A. in 1819, and in 1823 was elected a full tutor, a position he held until 1839. In 1825, appropriately enough on Trinity Sunday, he was ordained Deacon, and exactly one year later, Priest. Whewell's biographers provide no reason for his deciding to enter the Church, and none is evident from his letters, but it is likely that he did so out of a genuine conviction, rather than with an eye to advancement within the University. Whewell's character was unique. Physically he was a big man, from all reports over six feet, and as an undergraduate he was conspicuous as "a tall, ungainly youth, 3. with grey worsted stockings and country made shoes". 1 In his boyhood and early manhood he was not particularly healthy, and suffered from "an obstinate derangement of the digestive organs", which apparently was only success- fully treated by a Cambridge physician sometime around 1813. From that time onward his health was never in jeopardy and he gained a robust, impressive physique.

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