Indifference to science

A few things have reminded me of philosophers' indifference to actual science. The first was my own fault. I linked to this explanation of why glass is transparent, but after second thoughts and a bit longer on Google, the explanation seems completely wrong. I suspect the explanation (if you can follow it) in Wikipedia is the correct one, although (as I constantly remind my readers) you should beware of anything you read in Wikipedia. The second reminder is the supply of amusing and interesting scientific explanations by medieval authors quoted in Longeway's book. All of them are wrong. Grosseteste gives an explanation of thunder that involves hot and cold air mixing, expanding and producing flame, then quenching the flame with an audible explosion (the thunder). Any explanation of thunder that does not involve electricity (and the associated concepts of charge) is clearly wrong. And how about this wonderfully dodgy piece of neuroscience (from Albertus Magnus, quoted in Longeway p.56).

(1) In everyone in which there is an appetite for pain in what opposes him, there is an accession of blood to the heart from the evaporation of gall;
(2) in someone who is angry there is an appetite for pain in what is opposed to him;
(3) therefore, in one who is angry there is an accession of blood to the heart from the evaporation of gall.

The science mentioned by philosophers is often very bad. That in itself does not mean they are indifferent to science, but I believe they are indifferent as well. They are philosophers, and the actual science does not affect any philosophical point being made. I can easily change the example given in my earlier post as follows

Propter quid
Light passes through any substance which neither reflects it nor absorbs it
Glass neither reflects nor absorbs light
Therefore light passes through glass.

I will leave the construction of the corresponding quia form as an exercise. Note also that you would need to combine this with further syllogism involving an account of why glass neither reflects nor absorbs light (a substance absorbs light when its electron orbitals are spaced such that they can absorb a quantum of light (or photon) of a specific frequency, and does not violate selection rules). But none of that matters. The philosophical point is the same. Similarly, we could alter Albert's example to use a favourite example (probably equally dodgy) of modern philosophers of science as follows.

In everyone in which there is an appetite for pain in what opposes him, there is an appropriate stimulation of c-fibers in the hypothalmus
in someone who is angry there is an appetite for pain in what is opposed to him;
therefore, in one who is angry there is an appropriate stimulation of c-fibers in the hypothalmus

Aristotle's point is that every scientific explanation involves interposing a 'middle' B between some empirical truth of the form 'A is C', so we get a demonstration of the form

All B is C
This A is B
Therefore this A is C

which is meant to explain why the empirical truth is really true. All scientific demonstration involves 'finding a middle', and this point can be illustrated whether or not the scientific truth 'All B is C' is bad science or not. This is all about the philosophy of science, not science itself.

Which raises a further interesting point. Given that these medieval philosophers (Grosseteste, Albert, Aquinas, Ockham) were doing philosophy of science, not science itself, does that mean that all the medieval writing about 'science' was really philosophy of science? Which raises the difficult question of whether there really was a scientific revolution in the thirteenth century. And raises yet another question: do we need the philosophy of science, or an approach resembling the one adopted by the Aristotelian philosophers, in order to explain the most fundamental and difficult problems of science? Recall the Aristotelian definition of science: knowledge arrived at by demonstration. What kind of demonstration explains the phenomenon of anger? How do we explain anger in terms of the mechanical stimulation of 'c-fibres'? What kind of stimulation would explain anger at further bouts of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve? Is philosophical indifference to science, merely indifference to science of a certain kind? But enough for now.

Reduction by re-telling

A reductionist argument might go as follows. If you can take any story that ostensibly involves the existence of X's, and re-tell it without mentioning X's and without 'losing something' in the re-telling, then conclude that there aren't any X's. It's a bad argument. Either the re-telling means the same, but avoids mentioning X's by name. In which case we haven't avoided mentioning X's at all. It's as though we translated a story about ships into German, thus avoiding use of the English 'ship' by using the German word 'Schiff'. We have avoided the English 'ship', but we haven't avoided mentioning ships. Or the re-telling really doesn't mention X's at all, in which case the requirement that we aren't 'losing something' (ships, e.g.) is violated. You can't fail to mention X's in a re-telling without failing to mention something that was in the original story, and so the argument is obviously not valid.

Yet this is precisely what Peter Inwagen's argument against the existence of ships appears to do, when he re-tells the story of the Ship of Theseus.

Once upon a time, there were certain planks that were arranged shipwise. Call then the First Planks. . . . One of the First Planks was removed from the others and placed in a field. Then it was replaced by a new plank; that is, a carpenter caused the new plank and the remaining First Planks to be arranged shipwise, and in just such a way that the new plank was in contact with the same planks that the removed planks had been in contact with, and at exactly the same points. Call the planks that were then arranged shipwise the Second Planks. A plank that was both one of the First Planks and one of the Second Planks was removed from the others and placed in the field and replaced (according to the procedure laid down above), with the consequence that certain planks, the Third Planks, were arranged shipwise. Then a plank that was one of the First Planks and one of the Second Planks and one of the Third Planks . . . . This process was repeated till all the First Planks were in the field. Then the First Planks were caused to be arranged shipwise, and in just such a way that each of them was in contact with the same planks it had been in contact with when the First Planks had last been arranged shipwise, and was in contact with them at just the same points. (Peter van Inwagen, Material Beings (Cornell UP, 1990) 128-129)

Perhaps I have missed his point, but it appears to be that we can re-tell the story of the ship such that there is nothing in the standard version of the story that is not captured in the re-telling, and the re-telling does not mention ships, ergo there is no need for ships. If that is his argument, it involves the obvious fallacy I describe above. He begins "Once upon a time, there were certain planks that were arranged shipwise". What does that sentence mean? Does it mean the same as 'Once upon a time, there was a certain ship'? Does the expression 'shipwise arrangement of planks' mean the same as the word 'ship'? In which case the re-telling does mention ships, just as a German version of the standard story would mention ships (although by the word Schiff, of course). Or does it mean something different, something that is not a ship? In which case there is something in the standard version of the story (which begins with the assertion that there was a ship) that is not captured in the re-telling (which asserts only the existence shipwise arrangements of planks). Either way, the conclusion does not follow. Either the re-telling does assert the existence of ships, in which case it does not imply the non-existence of ships. Or it doesn't, in which case something has been lost in the re-telling, and the requirements of the argument are violated.

This casts some doubt on Vallicella's assertion here that Invagen "is a brilliant man". The argument does not strike me as brilliant at all. But perhaps I misunderstand it.