De Santillana - The Seventeenth-Century Legacy

The
Legacy: Seventeenth-Century Our Mirror of Being

Giorgio de Santillana it assumes itself to be concerned science
with the essential aspects of continues the line of Being, seventeenth-century thought to It goes on back leading antiquity. being ontological. is matter-in-motion. The aspect of Being that it has discovered It transmits this concern to its successors; thus we have eighteenth When d'Alembert suggests that natural laws, century materialism. are if be deduced from the truths, "should they really necessary is of he existence the scientific mind of matter," very epitomizing the period. mind is more But the seventeenth-century than that, complicated serve to show. as some brief reminder of that era may is a current and facile which There makes misapprehension move with science into natural law and determinism. thought only This, of course, is not so. Any rational thought assumes regularity, and the Renaissance had stressed natural law all too much: it was Because the Stoic version of natural law, the universal cosmic structure acting on each and other influences. Even the part through astrological schemes of such a free, critical and historical mind as Bodin's were overdetermined. greatly as a whole We might world say, in fact, that the Renaissance was overdetermined. Instead of one each event had cause, simple a at all from all quarters of the cosmos, great number, coming no It takes and less but than that levels, convergent. conspiring on forms, and to have a based It forms. takes cosmology significant no less than the whole of the cosmos to bring forth its image in the microcosm called man. Overdeterminism sound like a dreadful but it constraint, may to humanistic as we is not. It is instead a and help poetic feeling, can see in John Donne or Thomas a Browne. The more richly ' ' or more is determined substance the the cosmos, spon by signed to its own nature; this is what makes it can act taneously according the so of Being a free of active entities. complex World republic Less than current been in the of science, has done, justice history
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36 to the enormous role the
Dcedalus
played by traditional Stoicism scheme in the intellectual into transition. of
By transcribing properties strictly matter determined varied matter, conceived, (weirdly infinitely acts as a kind of but matter none the less), the Stoic theory Trojan establishes inside the consensus horse which of the public opinion a common-sense, It presents of the materialistic view. plausibility no effort of abstraction animistic matter which and can requires we all the things that expect of life; comfortably empirical perform matter which and lends itself to un encourages experimentation limited and inconclusive chemical carries research; matter which ' ' ' ' with it in the form of elixirs and old all the quintessences ' ' of signatures Being. a endeavor By contrast, Galileo's gains superiority metaphysical is better minds. Here the is not which readily by grasped ordinary 4 even if Democritus is is it: here materialism,' lurking behind on the insistence of mathematical, namely primary, properties matter. The cosmic determinism it suggests is brought down to one and one type of cause becomes dominant plane, that of mathematics, it is mathematical because itself. sufficient, necessity new cause, then, is far from matter: it is That being simply to which will mathematized be able dissolve substance, something into the field theory of central forces. Thus, we have a really new bearer for the structure ? it is a mathematical cosmological is mathematical. being, and the signature of things can meet ?in This is where Galileo and Kepler the implied of mathematical rationalism. When foundation invokes Kepler the of Proclus, the master of Neoplatonic authority systematics, the eminent of numbers and of the spheres, it concerning dignity a devout is not If and Proclus had misunderstanding. simply Kepler it is certain that met, and Proclus had been sufficiently intelligent, to instead of could have forced Proclus accept ellipses Kepler two men were these from a circles in his mystical system; operating common base. Proclus would have been more resistant to Galileo, who stuck and and yet it was Galileo desperately unreasonably one to the circles of Proclus; he acted as his where representative with what least expect it. He was has called would possessed Koyr? la hantise de la circularit?. the still operating within In sum, these men were Neoplatonic more the behavior of orbit. They simply defined clearly Being
The
at the
Seventeenth-Century
Legacy
was
37
level which concerned the mathematical them, which level. This goes all the way up to Leibniz. Their theory of cogni as tion was also the same ? would say, the order namely, Spinoza of ideas is the order and connection and connection of things. Nature and the mind were one and the same in their order. at some If the order of Nature did not appear to conform point to the order of the intellect, it was felt to be a Thus tragedy. * ar or searches for the architectonic Kepler principles ' feverishly ones. Which laws above the numeric is their chetypal straight consonance musical of their distances? We and the know harmony to exhaustion over the orbit of Mars ? how worked himself Kepler not fit. He it would because tells the story of his predecessor, to and of his fruitless efforts to Rheticus, bring the orbit of Mars was order inside the system. The despair of Rheticus Copernican recourse to black such that he had like and, Faust, finally magic to called upon the evil spirit help him. The spirit came, Kepler a subtle answer he tells us, but instead of grabbed Rheticus providing the his head the it then slammed hair, by banged against "ceiling, down on the floor and is all you need to That departed, saying, know about the orbit of Mars." If Rheticus had asked, say, about the hidden of some properties stone or the devil would have But the circles of plant, obliged. are heaven the very mention of them drives the devil to holy;
madness.
the himself, story, but in Kepler only in Kepler's of the late Renaissance; there is, even in this most of writers, of the artiness and extravagance much of guileless are new classical mannerism. Critics of who the style impressed by to obscure the of the seven poise of the baroque tend continuity teenth century with the peculiar of the declin madness hyperbolic " It is as from it that the ing sixteenth. century of genius," probably ex called the seventeenth, a certain Whitehead develops masquelike of mood and which is more than an exterior aggeration experience came to feel this fashion. those were the days of un way; People bridled emotions, extremes of all kinds, cynicism, cruelty, sensibility, a not least in in all Spanish-style grandness things, and metaphysics. Both and theoretical them society thought enjoyed reflecting as it the in and arbitrariness of absolute were, selves, godlike splendor were of centralized power, the wonders monarchy; they discovering There Faustian tension
is not
38
Dcedalus
a will, and took They accepted subjection with fully explicated. its harshness not only as a matter of course, but even as a true of a certain side of man's nature. We could barely guess expression of before the recent of Jansenist renunciation the discovery depths Michel de Barcos. that somber figure, What of the prose of Bossuet, or Donne, remains in our memory " . . . How are awestruck Dieu seul est grand, Messieurs phrases: a state art thou in . . . There is not a minute left to do it. desperate are we a minute's Not sand . . . For in the wombe taught cruelty, we be never fed with blood, and may be damned, by being though
borne. ..."
said that the reign of Louis XIV, beneath its trappings the advent to power of the bourgeoisie. splendor, signifies as a new sternness and True. But it is only of the bourgeoisie organi zation at the service of the sovereign will. Colbert and Boileau are two is the common aspects of it. Harshness experi complementary ence. to be shocked It takes the the soul of by Hakluyt practical waste of manpower which is in the hanging of poor implied out of one "even twenty at a for gaol." trifling offenses, clap people one heeded him at the time. At the court of Louis XIV, No very the where took off his hat to the servant women, Lau king gravely zun could consider it a to at a good practical joke garden party grind on the under his heel the hand of the Princess of Monaco, resting at execution the of La and grass. Conspicuous hangings Tyburn Brinvilliers were social events like title bouts. today's heavyweight The mechanical and with mechanical grottoes nymphs complete into the of Versailles built and Vaux-le hobgoblins landscaping are not the rocaille rococo amusement will be in the Vicomte they next nor are a of Homer's century; they literary reminder merely cave of the or Tartuffe more Alceste than Moli?re's any nymphs, are mere characters of exorcise an ancient set comedy; they really of subterranean le horrors, as we may realize in reading La Mothe on that famous cave in his Hexam?ron rustique. Vayer's allegory is In the same vein, the Mundus Fr. Kircher subterraneus of good a serious contribution to refers to those but it still already geology, as abscondita Naturae sacramenta. The years 1650 and 1681 regions are all-time in for literature closely highs astrological England, followed In those years five times as and Germany. by France as in any other year, and this titles are many astrological published has to do with comets and end-of-the-world computations. of sunlike
It has been
The
Such random
Seventeenth-Century
Legacy
39
in our memory into an far compose image a is Galileo's from all happy mediums. pro sentencing spectacular it of Veronese: duction wilfully brings worthy being portrayed by contrast the utter senselessness of the whole out story. Spinoza's by still it is no calmness may seem to be at the other unworldly pole; in Arden less extreme in its than the goings-on of implications or Feversham. of Corneille de Vega The heroes of Marlowe, Lope think and live in extremes. And under his studied So does Kepler. evenness of demeanor, of Nature, the "that Grand Secretary no is his miraculous less in affirmations Des-Cartes," hyperbolic than he was in his doubt. initially that this should have been the of Small wonder epoch metaphysics as was in the it of the drama. The fantastic manner, just grand of the mind of the the ultimate arrogance inventing logical design a cosmos or the was with rigorous theodicy strangely coupled somberness in submission. Jansenist or Presbyterian Disagreement, the skies conflict too, in the grand manner, resolved, grandiose were were to let of the scheme better ?but it revealed, part " own Sir Thomas Browne it in his The exantla say way: mighty tion of truth, wherein, of and against the tenacity prescription this century now prejudice, prevaileth." features all and Locke. We changes completely with Newton feel it. A new I should has entered science. spirit some of the fundamental like to try to differences. identify we are able to see how much If we look back from that position, to all the seventeenth in its dramatic discords, has century, given common ?to in of its thinkers and Descartes, Galileo, Spinoza as well as to their traditional I Leibniz And would say opponents. a it is not of it is a common Greek framework only unity style; to their substantialist is ?what called technically point of view the analog?a entis. the Aristotelian of Being is not such a Technically, Analogy In idea. it that all discrete outline, says simple intelligible sketchy are one to of in finite whole reference the parts reality only which the contains them. and individuation presuppose Unity know it, we
cosmos.
The
scene
But
intuitive to grasp
to use the I am of Being going Analogy sense: the called Man has being naturally the nature, the oneness of other beings,
here only in its in him the ability even as his own.
40
Dcedalus
nature ? for there is in the Greek word Thought naturally grasps ? insofar as it is itself natura noein the idea of grasping part of a Mirror a science which naturans. Hence is it can truly provide a speculum entis. of Being, Dr. in his Dialogue has to confront When Galileo Simplicio, of intellectual the obdurate the amount Aristotelian, exchange comes from the area of it a true that makes agreement dialogue start from what is for both incontrovertible, between the two. They indeed the is a whole, finite and the universe that perfect, namely, most refuses the new work of art. And when perfect Simplicio can well remind him that its mode of Galileo mathematical thought, that he foundation is the same. The famous parallel cognitive the human and the establishes at the end of the First Day between twelfth of Aristotle's is a in a new divine mind key transposition of the because there is knowledge book of Metaphysics: only nous and noeton, between the knower between fundamental identity and the had said, "Thought and the known, or, as Parmenides are one and the same." of object thought our would like like Aristotle, Galileo, say that Spinoza himself, at home in the in a way, but securely, mind is quodammodo, He if it will only lift itself to total rationality. divine mind, only " " wants to that the mode is that of the primary qualities specify In each man the whole of matter. of truth is present, potentially; can be is that and in Simplicio, he too, socratically compelled why to discover what he knew already. is so little is also That of experiment why Galileo's conception raucous of the Aristotelian in contrast with the empirical; appeal to facts and to common he resorts to the thought experience, as a discriminator uses facts as a check, He only experiment. between and wishful But the arrangement necessary arrangement. comes first, as witness circles: the con his unfortunate passion for crete is is what is not. of the abstract, what by explained by way to is is The dialogue alive because Galileo forcing Simplicio truly is. And, however remember how much of a Platonist he, too, really is the carrier of real much the substance has been changed which It is substance with it the analog?a entis. that still carries also ity, new That other and overdetermined. still, depart quite properly, on the Chinese-box theories on preformation, ure, the biological faith in a once embo?tement des germes, expresses a preposterous either some such One has to attempt for-all overdetermination.
The
Seventeenth-Century
Legacy
41
on it, or, when notion or a geometrical arrangement superimposed is conceived this too has to yield, a metaphysical rule emerges which as the order of forms, viz. the of Least Action. Principle replacing on maxima of economy is not as A principle and minima acting as a as it is but formal beautiful just principle, ideological, geometric we know and and it is a more flexible all abstraction; powerful it. Even with a formed that Leibniz was able to achieve with fully in this light the differential Euler sees mechanics, equations strictly for the motion he has discovered of a particle: There must be a double method for solving mechanical problems: one is the direct method founded on the laws of equilibrium or of motion; but the other one is by knowing which formula must provide
a maximum or a minimum. The former
both ways lead to the same solution, and it is such a harmony which convinces us of the truth of the solution, even if each method has to be separately founded on indubitable principles. But it is often very difficult
to discover the formula which must be a maximum or minimum, and
way
proceeds
by
efficient
causes:
which This
the quantity
of action
is represented.
by
' * it is which allows the new substance, matter harmony to overcome still the miseries of in-motion, conceived, inadequately to location and be and transmuted concreteness, misplaced simple into that most of substances, the Leibnizian eventually sophisticated
monad.
is very clear about it. Substance It is what he needs. even some substance remains outside of the Aristotelian scheme: is capable of thing (a vis) which being both active subject and most "What I mean by passive object. As he will say revealingly, * " substance can best be of that substance called I.' grasped by way to a With the entis is narrowed fine that, analog?a point. Substantial is the locus where freedom meets Being necessity. Leibniz full of contradic is, however, original single substance the one hand, its link with pure forms ties geometrical to the finite, and we see his obstinate resistance Galileo's still thought to the other half of his mind, which on toward pushes infinity. is reinforced Finiteness the appearance of that new instrument by of called the model. No explanation longer is the universe mirrored in every part of itself: a section of the universe can be on repeated an means of the mechanical scale model. It is difficult arbitrary by to a model not founded on the stabler and imagine simpler qualities. Galileo's tions. On
42 There
Dcedalus
or Stoic or even can be no model for a section of Aristotelian nature nature herself. Leibnizian except means if it But on the other hand, Copernicanism anything, * means the it means of the The founders Circle,' breaking infinity. of science skirt the issue as best they can; it is left to another kind ? I mean the full of mind to realize the consequences metaphysical This with Giordano Bruno. At his and poetic implications. happens death in 1600, Bruno has already gone the whole way. ? the *fact ' ? is in Bruno of Copernicus The discovery only the no of his mixture. detonator Although Neoplatonic-Pythagorean new the he has realized that idea mathematician, metaphysical has about ? namely, that Being in this mathematics brought key (we to finite size. cannot be it down call Being) might Pythagorean kept had found for insuring a finite world The device that Aristotle a state of was to make one and part of Being perpetually potency, That device becomes the other part a state of finite actualization. " ismathematical is all there," wholly for what always unacceptable, new solutions for the of and Hence actualized. rhythm becoming of the living form have to be found. Totally actualized the growth can in its invariant forms, its laws will be be being only expressed is of the type supplied by transformation however, groups. That, far in the future; in this time of inception, we cannot expect a clear are idea of all that the change the requirements implies. Only felt. passionately the like Bruno's, filled with Neoplatonic To a mind speculations, a one. God has to is from theological change Ptolemy Copernicus to in the universe become immanent instead of being transcendent as now as For God is. is himself for the universe infinite Bruno, it, " " it is not fitting that God, it appears as a logical consummation: as in himself, actualized who has always been conceived totally a too. The ancient idea world should not inhabit totally actualized comes back with of the theoprep?s, of what befits the Deity, explo sive force:
.... I do not demand infinite nor does nature have infinite
space, for the dignity of corporeal dimension and mass, but for the dignity of corporeal natures and species. For the infinite excellence better in innumerable itself incomparably manifests individuals, than
in those which are numberable such and as the finite. Therefore, above us, exist
space,
of an inaccessible divine countenance

innumerable worlds, others
there be an infinite image, in which

as infinite mem
it is necessary
that
The
bers.
Seventeenth-Century
43 Legacy
So in view of the innumerable grades which must represent the a unfolding of the divine incorporeal excellence in corporeal way, there must be innumerable individuals, and namely these great animate beings, of which the earth is one, our Divine Mother who has borne us and
nourished is no one us to and at last will take us into in the her false bosom. denial ... that I believe as for there space it persevere obstinately
can as for the individual and collective excellence infinitely contain, and of infinite worlds that they can be contained, any less than this world
which we know. Each of them has a reason for
For infinite space has infinite aptitude, and that infinite aptitude attains the infinite efficient is its glory in an infinite act of existence, whereby saved from being deficient, and the aptitude from being fruitless. as a in the idea can lead of Being positive good, or, * '? an idea which our con terms, as a perfection present can sciousness is not un only with misgivings. approach Kepler aware of these like like him Galileo but, implications, Copernicus, a out. he backs The need for finite well and self, universe, warmly in him than contained within its outer glacial limits, is stronger his own adventurous later, Pascal puts years imagination. Fifty " it with his usual frankness: It will be a in good idea," he writes " not to into the of 218, go any deeper fragment opinion Coper We classical
nicus."
appropriate
existence.
see where
It is in him that the two world goes the whole way. views, the old and the new, both vividly present to his mind, come into destructive conflict. On the one hand, he still thinks in terms over his own shadow. He of forms ? after all, a man cannot jump feels the need for the finite, for the sake of that restrained actualiza tion of it grants to the thinker ? the Being that is form, for what of vision, of the dense intuition, of the possibility growth of thought in contemplation. as On the other hand, that is now conceived Being expanding torn from its all in this is and mind realization the limits, beyond it feels, as it were, the Thus into anchorage, infinity. propelled serene outcome is not in and The acceptance. simply pantheism to bear on finite entities, tensive thought which used to be brought as it were, to which their Being on man, is now reflected, brought can be an a continuous bear on what Bruno process, perceives only toward ever-receding horizons, end, a trajectory analysis without in which man has to surrender of his own finite the limitations to the stake in 1600, he When Bruno was sentenced individuality. must have own of his the hunter who thought image: prophetic But Bruno
44
Dcedalus
and is torn to pieces by
has come upon the deity in the dark woods, his own staghounds turned against him. The world of Galileo and Kepler,
strained to the con although remains congruous nominalistic, ceptual limit, although dangerously to the universe of discourse of Dante. It does raise major problems that universe; but it cannot and will and terrible questions within not answer them, for it insists on if one may say so, remaining, with the classical conception. metaphysically isomorph in a and Locke, we are undeniably With Hobbes and Newton Hobbes Locke refuse of That and different climate very thought. are to from ideation the analog?a entis is obvious. We moving concerns us here more it is to see how What ideology. directly with Newton. happens as in see cannot As a Cartesian, Newton any way gravitation essence matter. he says, in of That is why from the deducible " non jingoP To him I don't understand it, et hypotheses effect, an act of God the is a miraculous intervention, whereby gravitation are maintained in the uni order and equilibrium dynamic simplest verse. writes: In his famous passage on God Newton
A true, supreme God. And or imaginary his from dominion true dominion makes it a true, supreme that the follows or true
God
imaginary
only
. . . but we causes; ion: for we adore and
is a living, intelligent and powerful Being. by his most wise and excellent contrivances
reverence as causes, and his is adore him and else on him servants; nothing a
account
. . . We know him of things, and final

of his domin without dominion, and Nature.
providence,
final
god but Fate
of the is the primacy break. This truly the nominalistic " we no a can find ourselves in is mind which Will. God longer as Galileo at home," as the Greeks under have put it, and might and all we can do is try to is an impenetrable Will, stood it. God understand his intentions as best we may, in order to carry out those as a Grand Vizier would deal deals with God intentions. Newton This is one of his has major decisions deciphered too. It is he tries in other directions usually philosophy: a blemish on Newton's life that he spent the last twenty considered out and became from the Scriptures, years working numerology Yet when about physics. asked him questions impatient people to discover was we should see the logic of it. Newton trying this time his will of numbers: the will of God again by way with a fearsome Sultan. He in natural
The
concerning
clear.
Seventeenth-Century
He did not has get anywhere;
Legacy
but the intention
45
is
man. Newton
the small. He has imposed on an un the feeling something radically discovery, rule the stars in their courses, the of laws which suspected plane, of heaven at last understood: it is a new combination of mystery to 'iron determinism.' intellectual and emotional resignation pride can fit a notion of a sky henceforth silent to our prayers The or can a become detachment in the it kind of vein, Spinozian to the Law; both are surrender in the new Presbyterian represented of science. Absolute determinism and mechanical high priests simple It would led to a block uni have was, of course, a myth. rationally verse where a out of the of nothing happens. But myth necessity, new of Being had established itself. It needed no other re metaphor a new itwas a with its basic ligion; religion itself, religious paradox: new a man. new of of the irrelevance Such is the mind, power entis. speculum the link between man and nature is broken, we are left Once as to the nature of We get soundly practical fumbling knowledge. as Locke's, which creates such the of a power attempts, phantom a common-sense to in of objects the mind; induce representations come to scientific idea which will fruition in our time, but one more nonsense. which is than Epistemology hardly philosophically has reared its of Individuation does not head. The ugly Principle to look for a new home. The Mirror know where is dangerously gained of novel:
cracked.
Yet what
is not
Thus we enter the the si?cle des lumi?res, in century, eighteenth a situation but also very untidy. All sorts of star highly exciting offer themselves as seemingly tling propositions irrefutably empirical and invite the most diverse deductions. is strewn with The century the corpses of such theories. The conflict between Cartesian ration creates an occluded front between alism and the new empiricism into the second half the two leading countries which lasts well of the century. is established, under the ironical In the end, a general agreement on we a new of what call Hume, gaze type of analog?a entis. might man is matter It is a na?ve materialism: too, of a freewheeling So the that d'Alembert We remember variety. analogy proceeds. " to essence of nature derive the laws of still from the hoped
matter."
46 In fact, a new down sents
Dcedalus
of matter is which will break mythology arising, as Fontenelle in the nineteenth Nature, pre century. only The real but a stage set and a trompe-Foeil. it, is nothing scene. behind the action takes tackle and counterweight place by me UiI is become said the Marquise, very perceive' ' 'Philosophy ' said I, that I fear we shall chanical.' So mechanical,' be quickly a had you not asham'd of it. . . . Pray, tell me, Madam, formerly '" more idea of the sublime Universe? But the has an all the century extraordinary eighteenth clarity, same. It has the illuministic the the will to of a clarity, light, hope new reason and a new of course, the social justice. This explains, ?a of the scientific campaign intensity, intensity pragmatistic a shameless but aimed at which Baconianism, surely, develops
awakening a new common sense.
the new analog?a entis goes offensive and mystery The against authority saying. reassurance the of matter of and ways by way simplicity, provides seem to be so There is than nothing simple. gratifyingly simpler an asserts Voltaire There without batting eyelash. gravitation, as so are is nothing while says Priestley, electricity, amusing pigs a are roasted electrically chain of six hundred and obliging monks in unison through the of a made to hold hands and discharge jump is science in action. This This is fun. condenser. The is the exponent does not serve sci class of which Voltaire science for the sake of ence, nor does it superstitiously respect as it would uses science for a showdown. It today. applications, not in the seventeenth, It is only in the eighteenth that century, a scandal and a cause the of becomes Galileo truly sentencing c?l?bre. a The very the dialogue prevents high philosophical intensity of it mediocre level effective. The Jesuit and the but makes the level, a similar tone court similar references, freethinker ?they adopt aim at entertaining and and social frivolity, social attention they This is the obverse side of what we call the interest provoking. so is no time in which social motives control in science. There That such a common sense needed without of intellectual In the mood superstructure. we overcomes us think of that so when often nostalgia which was we a then between effected desirable era, say that junction awareness which has been lost and scientific humanistic thought us let since. The But be first, consider, justified. complaint may overtly the intellectual
The
Seventeenth-Century
Legacy
47
to a small elite life was then restricted that intellectual composed of men who had lively social intercourse with one another, few of were in our sense; second, of that that much whom specialists does remain on a amateurish elaboration painfully 'philosophic' scientific fantasies and frivolous level. systems Misapprehensions, Fontenelle stands out like a flourish in tropical luxuriance. shining the matter has to be handled in that confusion. When seriously, light we are led back to what is not our modern but had problem only, " an It becomes been increasing prob expressed already by Kepler: on science as as 1609, "to write lem," he had written early today. is not carried on with the proper the book If the argument rigor, is observed, But if the proper it becomes is not mathematical. rigor most difficult to read. . . ." ' ' is fears as the Thus, what Montesquieu tyranny of geometry an unwarranted in fields where intrusion of amateur physics mostly have feared to tread. It is in this that we ought experts would light to read his famous remarks of 1717, echoed later by pessimistic " on decline of sciences: the the mathematical Discoveries Diderot, a kind of exhaustion in have become rare, it looks as if there were . . ." if held observation and in observers. still Clearly, something it was an aesthetic the tension, the irresistible together, dialogue element of and that thing called composition, style all-pervading le go?t. These of course, in no way reflect upon the great and qualifiers, real advances of the time, or on the hope, and courage, and honesty on the will to to of the main enterprise. Nor, certainly, clarity, and ? even more clarification. much logical Present-day empiricism ? is a direct so than Comte's of original positivism offspring successor It is and the eighteenth the of Hume Gibbon, century. ' it is in the line of Condillac and Lavoisier's search for a well-made It is in character, the too, unmistakably dix-huiti?me, language.' conclusion of the and reckless charge against pompous light-hearted in that same which and stilted Vol oppression prejudice, spirit urged to taire to his best years the done Calas. wrong spend avenging was our modern movement, Not the 'Vienna Circle,' by chance born in the last country which carried into the twentieth century the too soon extinguished echo of Mozart and Watteau. is this: what is left to overcome? The door problem today a crash, and we have at times the with of opened feeling spin our to balance. ning dizzily forward without being able regain The has
48 For here we notice the
Dcedalus
second crack in the Mirror with its
of Being. in Our century brings right (that is, 1914) a beginnings new does in thinking which provide physical degree of arbitrariness but at for dealing with quantum the freedom needed phenomena, as Einstein has the of ruefully consistency, metaphysical price at least, the out. On the be might change literary plane pointed ' as the Twenties were era of wonderful said to fit the nonsense,' called, and one detects an echo of that era in the intellectual mood is a The outcome of revolutionaries of the young reality physics. as Both nature less than determined. is which theoretically accepted in them and the object of the search are seen as under determined ? comes ? or rather his choice action of the observer and selves, back and he the picture. Man has forced his way in to complete ever what kind of But since. his bridgehead has been widening man kind of free activity? is that? And what ? if it were of A metaphysical implications rejection complete ? us what of used to be called the freedom give might possible is the indifference. When guided only by experimental hypothesis to suppose that will when we are willing anything consequences, we to too surrendered have is far-fetched when 'work,' try, nothing has some of the aspects choice of thought, and enter a phase which nihilism. of intellectual circles. But One need not stay forever the prisoner of Platonic rules the empiricist suggests that science is a set of operational when it. Science for changing marks on paper, he is obviously overdoing is and remains the search for some kind of being, even an elusive Stars are real and so are but still a real entity. like a meson, being on are not marks subatomic merely " photographic they particles; at the of his pen," found Leverrier When tip Neptune plates. an economic was not for as said, he looking simply panegyrics ? he was new a Fermi knew of planet. thinking entity regularizing mere a as to it too much about the neutrino accounting regard rarefied and still remain such. One Entities may become device. con an even in a vector in Hilbert entity space, for it is may believe turned out to be a formable to our search. But supposing demons use we would in our scientific explanation, proposition paying I do not know further concern? without demons in physical theory would what the answer, but to be consistent he ought to pragmatist to that pays off is like freedom Infinite "Yes." posit anything say a move desert. to in infinite freedom anywhere
The
The fact
Seventeenth-Century
work
Legacy
49
even if are does use they guides now is a word 'Revision' frequently usually unacknowledged. our of what It means used in conception changing physical theory. so that it comes to fit what we is real in the imply by reality. picture that we have The unresolved of science and metaphysics mixture us directions had since the seventeenth about things century gives once to the attack ? The directions which try. guided simple ? or are now absolute determinism materialism, pan-mathematism of the like Islands the but the Blessed, horizon, they points beyond still influence our course. is, scientific Let would which us then not like it to be. take science for what some of its philosophers statements from
'intersubjective' Completely shadow is banished, from which all any impli metaphysical at the could occur of being is removed, cation or discussion only where there are no subjects left to share them. So long as it is point alive and not sterile, science will remain a speculum entis, it will a structure is an which what did, present symbolic metaphysics of being, but is not the only one. essential metaphor to insist on itself as an if science were presenting Inevitably, of thought, for and of devices economy assemblage pragmatic power were to if it its under objectivity technological disguise poetic then would be bound to occur. Out misunderstandings wizardry, siders will ask whether such a program could not just as well have It is only with its system of fitted Renaissance nigromancy, recipes. too obvious to the mind that the eighteenth century spirit perceptive among us finds little left to combat which has any stature and glory, a poor game. has become and that debunking of public feel There arises then inevitably, too, an estrangement on it is the counteroffensive human of bewildered mounted and ing; to a is in some, a veritable paranoia ists, which leading becoming, most with windmills. battle pointless to lead in the Those who believe right of science intransigently a matter It will irrelevant. find these difficulties is, they say, may the horse to the and of of education trough again taking patience, no concession to until he drinks, with and popularizing again to go ahead. But the pressures. The researcher's business is simply trouble is right here: that science has been going ahead on its straight and thus leaving behind all the tradi and logical way, going fast, scientist has ceased tional involvements, its own. The including as cultural little gusts in the great dialogue being. The taking part
5? of revolt might blowing find worthy
Dcedalus
through society of attention. are the kind that the statesman
I would reaction of the social suggest that the instinctive body, sense which of that communal has an obscure wisdom of its own, to shows the start of a retreat from science prepared positions. There is no antiscientific commitment and there cannot be, except a con in a histrionic vein; but a choice of interests is discernible, which takes the place held classic and by by speculative metaphysics, tragedy generally " a trace of condescension, what Aristotle would with the call, by of the testimony weighty poets." to the novel, and of course to the I am novel. referring important even to take that When think have professional philosophers they As a form the novel is decision. road, it is indeed a significant more a not covers than it and old, century hardly coincidentally the same span of time as the unscientific born of philosophies a new to Romanticism. it Like the consciousness them, brings it draws from a new com of life time and and perception history, sense. Like munal a deliberate it represents break with them, not a conte philosophique; ideas. It is it has eighteenth century upon knowledge of old
no thesis.
centration
a form
of
should realize the difference or from the past. For Galileo were who both artistic Descartes, natures, yet instinctively was a of classical set out in fine history repository examples style; art and literature were of works essentially high craftsmanship meant for the pleasure of the senses, a and display ' of magnificence taste. not in the were, serious,' They way strictly speaking, or the is serious, or proper of philosophy 'great affairs worship, ' on the other hand, what To the modern looks seri mind, princes.' ' ous is the flash of a true stream in the experience glimpsed rushing of time. It is from there that can take its start. speculation What the reader searches for in the novel is, I suppose, an in crease in his own of and His range life-experience understanding. interest is aesthetic but also He is his theoretical speculative. having the one that science refuses to and he is having moment, supply, it in the ancient and sense. original On what I would level? is built on an suggest this: the novel experience is beyond of reality, but experience, which an essential order which it presupposes is rediscovered in and experience,
We
The
which
Seventeenth-Century
a
Legacy 51
new narrative it with is, in a meaning. provides Every a new The narration circumscribes, way, experimental approach. as it were, Its invariants are less abstract than those of the enigma. science, but it, too, is a search for order in a world initially experi enced as chaos. The search for an of order inside chaos enigma is manifest in that weird and sometimes of hellish quality reality us so far from the of strikes which, existentialism, being privilege " a often in our own time: is I am from which History nightmare to it Translated into abstract would be terms, trying quite escape." to the Platonic of escape from the physical world parallel by way its discovered inconsistency. It admits This is, then, another aspect of the search for truth. as 'chance a not considered is and but chance reality necessity,' on the other hand, a of reason ?or, for a principle camouflage The attitude remains one of methodic pre-established harmony. see of order. We doubt, the search for reason and for a principle as a the artist using the visible forms of convention and set, stage on the contrast between those forms and the original insisting on which nature of to their rule ?the 'being' they try impose contrast which generates conflict and irony. It is the search for this In Maxwell's and classic 'being' which provides meaning " depth. words It is a universal of the condition knowledge, concerning a law must the in mind of that believe the existence enjoyable to move and yet have a mystery in." terms and with true like all Maxwell, poets, speaks in universal a measure the classic of ambiguity. in his words But we rediscover intuition the is the entis. What makes analog?a mystery "enjoyable" of an the law we discern and that of of nature between identity our own should the scientific mind being. As he says elsewhere, " an will." of be without extinction abandonment of wilfulness in the pragmatistic Now modern science has accepted wilfulness even of However itself. and dialectically conception philosophically where that in wilfulness is justified, subtly present epistemology, out the it has been detected and denounced Einstein, by acting role of Tiresias. It is patent in the attitude toward nature, which is one of acosmism, of advance as an breakthrough. unending that we discern among The shift, then, in canons of relevance and sensi minds outside science, the increased attention perceptive not is tiveness to in its many existentialism forms, simply literary ' ' a movement. It is a reaction, of the communal surely, reactionary
52
Dcedalus
it is in that it discounts sense, but not antiscientific; postscientific, itself seems to have interest that science in science a philosophic to the range devalued. The center of relevance has moved wilfully resolved ? to of which awaits forever to be metaphysically reality used success the condition humaine as such, to quote a designation In that range of Pascal and Malraux. reality, ively by Montaigne, an inviolate re we find, and all sociology beyond anthropology, is man's nature sistance of the object, which itself, the dramatic ' to move,' the mystery in which i.e., the intuition that experience, same are the of the universe and the subject nature, the possibility means or an of art. of achieving insight by regaining that range of cosmic there are also other approaches. reality ' ' talk may of which there is now so much revival religious and of an irrelevant kind, but it has its be high points too, mostly one of them leads us back to Newton with and great meaningful To own at science and remember Newton's attempt combining the God I mean his of definition the humanities, quoted previously and adore of natural which "We reverence concluded: philosophy, . . ." This kind of God was, him because of his true dominion. of of course, a scientific and a rather unfortunate metaphor being, one, which was disposed of in short order. But the live element of it ' true and ever since) was determinism (we can spot it in Laplacian
dominion.'
The
irony. We
of have the case of Simone Weil, herself a member a at the Ecole scientific reared freethinker group, distinguished It normale in the great tradition of seventeenth-century philosophy. is within that frame that she lived the tragic modern experience. she looked anew at the classical her Following religious illumination, inertial matter, of being, and she saw Cartesian metaphor namely as a it inside had cre which rightly physical myth physical theory it to the other ated more difficulties than it solved. By transferring it to she had become her concern, range of reality which brought a life It becomes of social human there again. metaphor descriptive and inertia, la under its own weight ity itself, society functioning a It is determinism which rules behavior, pesanteur. imaginations It creates the chain of evil and its counterpart, human and desires. ' blind the normal breeds affliction,' wrong; suffering. Wrong as lubri are seen social virtues of tolerance and compromise merely a
In our time, we
The
cants Weil for the machine.
Seventeenth-Century
There is a of
Legacy
53
perceives it any redeeming quality. into makes victims idea, and surely, is the dominant things." Here, one not unnatural in a in which century already eighty progressive to million have been killed in the name of various ninety people moves and novel rationales. As away from rigid mechanistic physics as it now as a a universe which determinism, appears myth, projects of transient and limited states, systems, loosely coupled predictabil ' ' finds a new habitat; the mechanistic be thingness ity, symbolism comes evident not in but in what men do to other men. things to a few, but vision may be This intellectual compelling only even to those who will not accept it, it will look imaginative and as Simone Weil understands does Affliction, it, weirdly plausible. not lend itself to consciousness, it empties the soul of the afflicted, no matter what "who fills it with he may have paltry comfort set his heart on." It may be in the the concen of scavenging garbage tration camp, or it may be a raise in wages and a two-car garage. or dissociative in the res Descartes' pure analytical relationship a fair extensa is here The other' from this given parallel. 'wholly to the res cogitans, on this kind of matter, that which corresponds new level, isGrace, which makes the soul come alive. Thus, emerg a out of an of the modern scientific universe, acceptance ing comes world in the seventeenth-century into style theological one that Malebranche not have disavowed. But being, and might It it carries its modern is known far. that Simone Weil logic very never to formal herself conversion, accepted choosing identify " with the immense and unfortunate mass of unbelievers." She seems
the mechanism
realism in the way Simone pitiless excludes from affliction, which is anonymous "Affliction above all, it
to have meant it The course of modern critical thought on strictly. even the notion dissolves of personality, all its levels, which had as fictions. She that led her to consider insisted symbols religious in a world the real religious of chance, necessity and experience was of force of and and automation, affliction, antibiotics, aspirin the absence of God. The silence, the the powerlessness, nothingness are the messengers of God of his true presence. the power behind this show, she said, If God were taking up the one to Ivan words of then would feel Karamazov, compelled " return the ticket." But if God is not there, then his Grace becomes a of reality in us by way of a metaphysical of divine theology gnostic non-being. paradox; we enter a kind
54 There is no mistaking "A or
Dcedalus
the
of it over against the Natural irony or true, supreme Philosopher's theology: imaginary dominion a true, answer now makes is: God." The supreme imaginary " a dominion which non is less than and in fact Only imaginary, existent, makes the true God." to do is to read the modern I have been What trying predica ment in the set of the requirements by that boldest of centuries, light we find is an the seventeenth. What apparent scattering and altera over a richer, tion of factors the whole map ?in unpre reality texture. In it the illuministic the meditated offensive, "mighty exantlation of truth," is of science. by the advance represented But as the of science moves farther away from common language to be in the sense, as the scientist allows himself justified public consciousness results and the by pragmatic wizardry, technological to search for the of for the Mirror of has Analogy Being, Being, shift to other levels. Undercommitment in the way of scientific ' ' to other forms of truth, until the truth brings overcommitment is of commitment That idea becomes very starkly problematic. come own. now woven into its is the novel has where Metaphysics into the texture of itself and confronts man his through experience sentient being who finds himself exis life in unexpected ways. The ' ' into the situation has to face it and create his thrown tentially or be enslaved own as he goes system along, by another man's, without benefit of high abstraction. Too often, he will put the
blame on 'Science.'
the prisoner of its formal Yet, if only science avoided becoming or of it istic refinements the roughness ?if pragmatistic accepted find its old place in the definition of itself, it would Maxwellian as a structure not of but as a great dialogue simply symbols, of It does not differ in this respect from tradi Metaphor Being. and is more carefully tional except that the metaphor metaphysics, out and the worked the ordeal of through consistently experiment Its own dialectic, if deemed worthy of atten labor of generations. of the other forms reveal itself tied to the dialectic tion, would as and complement of thought, and such principles indeterminacy a value which their strict show transcended would arity operational significance. The way for humanism to co-exist with science it nor to try to imitate it. Rigor and elaborateness is neither to damn as borrowed from
The
science
Seventeenth-Century
Legacy
nor do the more
55
technical disciplines, drawn from information concepts, thermodynamics, theory, psy to and so on, lend themselves but chiatry becoming anything leads meta inside another of system interesting metaphoric quite means to To take these leads phors. literally forbidding, develop use and indeed afflictive, of verbal whose contraptions machinery It means touch with the communal fulness is far from proven. losing of far less to show in sense, clouding, too, the Mirror Being with return. It becomes the abstruse game for an elite, like Hermann Hesse's in the Bead Game of Castalia ? but without the Kingdom it. elite to corresponding play function in that it represents Science does have a universal the of In the face of such chaotic situa ordering thought. capacity tions as occur, for instance, in it still represents literary criticism, as do not come out of machines. of order, such principles principles ' ' meta It makes room for It does have, be adequate speculation. a the range of controversy, and that is mathe yond meta-physics, to dis itself. It also has a meta-mathematics, matics and it is willing cuss In the construction and of it choice theories, meta-languages. are is which like aesthetic, guided by principles ultimately simplicity and symmetry. from that, it has in itself Apart something entirely humanistic, its of creative its own in the namely images, experiences interplay tie up with all other forms of search. search for truth, which In one the thought of such men as Henri Poincar? and Hermann Weyl, finds all the levels of culture tied in with their personal speculation; aware not the bare bones of method, but the philosophical merely are and the dense intuition which ness, the contemplative capacity were as to traditional If ascribed humanists open thought. commonly to the world to do with ideation of scientific (which has nothing of the metaphors and as comprehensive of science special results) to the as those men were of and re literature, metaphors history there would be little cause for the battle against windmills, ligion, and worried minds would not have to be reminded of Blake's words: vision and Newton's It "Let God me keep ?from single sleep." from whatever it is the may come, angle single vision, monopolistic of the dialogue and of the free of critical which is destructive play discernment. accent is never lifted, it shifts accord Thus, the metaphysical only to time. The theodicies of the nineteenth scientific century ing
do not fit humanistic
5? have
Dcedalus
the illuministic is in into oblivion, offensive floundering lapsed to is in the of science absurd formalism, having explain position ' ' It is then somewhere is also useful. else that that basic research men will search for the essential; of pretense, horror of contempt even when of the of dressed and up banality non-being dictatorship a truth which to their search for freedom, in electronics, responds in short, for a world that should make sense. lightness, genuineness, never it The Mirror of shows in breaks Being completely, only new its of Science has with image plane Metaphors Being. dropped unconcern It the Platonic and overtones of its implications youth. had once been the foundation of it today, metaphysics; professes indifference if finds outside supports to negate proud metaphysics science itself. But as it turns out that Platonism, too, and independ on that same outside, science is now well begin ently, negated might to wonder about this strange coincidence, itself and, seeing through to feel the discomfort alien eyes at last, begin of its displaced position.

De Santillana - The Seventeenth-Century Legacy

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De Santillana - The Seventeenth-Century Legacy

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The

Legacy: Seventeenth-Century Our Mirror of Being

36 to the enormous role the

here only in its in him the ability even as his own.

of an inaccessible divine countenance

there be an infinite image, in which

. . . but we causes; ion: for we adore and

. . . We know him of things, and final

god but Fate

46 In fact, a new down sents

48 For here we notice the

5? of revolt might blowing find worthy

54 There is no mistaking "A or

do not fit humanistic

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