Qualitative Physics in a Metaphysical Perspective

Traektoriâ Nauki = Path of Science. 2018. Vol. 5. No 3 ISSN 2413-9009 Qualitative Physics in a Metaphysical Perspective Aleksandr Kulieshov 1 1 Cherkasy State Technological University 460 Shevchenko Boulevard, 18006, Cherkasy, Ukraine DOI: 10.22178/pos.44-5 Abstract. The article deals with the problem concerning the possibility of qualitative physics paradigm development and its close connection with metaphysics. The idea LСC Subject Category: BD95- of qualitative physics is based on the principles of Aristotelian physics and is 131 opposed to quantitative modern physics (classical and non-classical). It is stated that the essential difference between the two physical paradigms lies in the ways of Received 20.02.2019 describing physical objects. Qualitative physics presuppose the qualitative Accepted 20.03.2019 description of physical objects independent of their quantitative description. In Published online 31.03.2019 normal nowadays physics, on the contrary, physical objects are regarded to be fully determined through quantitative (numerical and structural-analytical) relationships with other objects. The statements of modern physics are considered reasonable if Corresponding Author: they can be self-consistently expressed by the apparatus of mathematics. The article [email protected] shows that this way of describing and explaining physical reality is incomplete. There is ground to assert that the quantitative relations of physical objects do not encompass everything that exists in the relations of physical objects. It is argued that there are qualitative aspects of physical reality that are not defined quantitatively and may become the content of special qualitative physics. The conclusion is made that © 2018 The Author. This such qualitative physics in its principles and language must be close to traditional article is licensed under a metaphysics and can appear to be an application of metaphysics to the field of Creative Commons physical reality. Attribution 4.0 License Keywords: physical paradigm; qualitative physics; quantitative physics; metaphysics; the way of describing physical objects. INTRODUCTION objects that are differently described quantita- The term “qualitative physics” has nowadays at tively. The peculiarity of qualitative methods least two spheres of application. One concerns a consists in taking into account only qualitative parameters. “As a matter of fact, one important branch of physical research connected with arti- goal of qualitative physics is to support reasoning ficial intelligence having been formed in USA in about physical systems that does not require (or 80-90-ies of the 20th century. It is characterized by the general understanding of qualitative phys- pretend to have) exact numerical information ics as a set of methods which can help in achiev- about them” [4, p. 124]. Qualitative physics understood in this way does not preclude the for- ing some results within physical science. In [4] this research branch is depicted in such a way: malization of qualitative parameters, their ex- “In most qualitative physics approaches, systems pression in mathematical form (in the form of a are characterized in terms of parameters that special algebra), which should facilitate the transfer of qualitative physical reasoning to the take on “qualitative values”. Such qualitative values may be obtained from the respective quanti- level of machine intelligence. As it was stated by tative (i. e. real-valued) description by consider- K. D. Forbus, “Qualitative physics arises from the need to share our intuitions about the physical ing significant “landmarks” which discriminate world with our machines” [5, p. 241]. In general, qualitatively between different states or modes of behaviour (e. g. the freezing point and the boil- such qualitative physics does not differ from ing point of a fluid object, or the maximal opening mathematical physics by its objects, goals, and of a valve) [4, p. 124]. Thus, qualitative physics is general principles of research. It differs only in specified parameters and in methods of operat- reduced to a set of qualitative methods applied to ing with them. Qualitative physics refines and Section “Philosophy” 1010 Traektoriâ Nauki = Path of Science. 2018. Vol. 5. No 3 ISSN 2413-9009 complements the results obtained by using quan- grounding its statements. This aspect of Aris- titative analysis, and in this sense, qualitative totle’s physics does not escape researchers` at- physics remains entirely within the science of tention. J. Schummer argues that “for Aristotle physics as it is now understood. Experts in the and his followers, mathematics was clearly dis- field of qualitative physics agree in viewing tinct from physics, because it only described na- “qualitative physics as an extension of existing ture in geometrical or numerical terms. The task scientific disciplines rather than as an entirely of physics was, however, to explain nature” [9, new field of endeavour” [8, p. 19]. p. 760]. The absence of the mathematical form of Another interpretation of qualitative physics is expression means that in the explanation of present in the historical analysis of early physical physical objects their measurable (homogene- theories, especially ancient ones. First of all, this ous) attributes are not highlighted, these attrib- term refers to the physics of Aristotle. Qualitative utes are not formalized in the form of variables physics means here not one of the aspects of and constants. In addition, numerical or analyti- physical research, but physics in general. This cal (in terms of sets and their elements) relations physics appears to be an alternative to classical between selected physical objects are not estab- and modern physics which is mathematized and lished. In this respect, the concept of qualitative based on experiment and measurement. At the physics is opposed to the concept of not just same time, Aristotle's physics is closely con- quantitative, but mathematized physics. It seems nected with metaphysics, is an application of like this is the main sense of qualitative physics. metaphysics to the field of physical phenomena. Qualitative physics is the physics without I. Bodnar notes that “Aristotle’s metaphysics and mathematics, serving at least as the background physics use a common conceptual framework, for physical research. This is the physics without and they often address similar issues. The prime measurements or descriptive physics, which is and distinctive task of first philosophy is an in- reduced to the selection of qualitative differences quiry into first entities; these, however, are not in physical reality. perceptible entities, and as a result they have to It is established that the transition from Aristote- be investigated through a metaphysical investi- lian physics to modern one occurred in the 17th gation of physical entities. Hence the overlap be- century. And although there are doubts about the tween the two disciplines, which often verges on chronological framework of this process [7], the inseparability” [1]. Aristotle’s Physics, as general shift from qualitative physics to mathe- C. Shields notes, “is not, of course, a work of the matized one is obvious. The principle idea of the sort we find in modern quantitative physics. It is, “grand narrative” (as it is called by S. Roux) about rather, a puzzle-driven inquiry into features and the seventeenth century Scientific Revolution is facets of nature at their most general level” [10, that mathematization should be taken “as the cri- p.196]. Aristotle's physics is qualitative in two terion for distinguishing between a qualitative ways. First, we are talking about a qualitative un- Aristotelian philosophy and the new quantitative derstanding of the empirical basis of science. physics” [7, p. 320]. It may be that the introduc- Perceived qualities underlie the reasoning in the tion of mathematics in natural philosophy had physics of Aristotle. According to M. Mouzala, been more gradual and less revolutionary during “The crucial point of Aristotle’s theory of method the Renaissance and the Early Modern period but in the Physics I.1 is that perception, the only fac- it cannot be denied that “for Aristotle, mathemat- ulty of human being that can have access to the ics merely captures the superficial properties of composite natural thing, naturally grasps it as an things” and this position is vastly different from indiscriminate, inarticulate and confused whole” the modern physics. Classical physics had [6, p. 48]. The purpose of the analysis in Aris- emerged to the great extent by overcoming the totle’s physics is to explain the qualitative trans- flaws of qualitative physics. A new understanding formations to which the quantitative ones are of empirical basis had appeared. It consisted in also reduced (increase and decrease in quantity, the formalized observation and experiments me- movement). thodically subordinate to the process of measur- More importantly, another feature of Aristotle’s ing physical quantities and their relations. But qualitative physics is that it lacks mathematical even more important thing – principally impor- apparatus as a means of expression and a way of tant for all modern physics, from the 17th century to the present day – was the conviction ex- Section “Philosophy” 1011 Traektoriâ Nauki = Path of Science. 2018. Vol. 5. No 3 ISSN 2413-9009 pressed at the time by Albert Einstein: “Our ex- opment of science. Here is one of the characteris- perience up to date justifies us in feeling

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