Thank you so much for your explanations of Hegel's logic, Andy. This has
been a very useful discussion for me, and I suspect others who would like
to learn more about the ideas of this great philosopher.
Now, perhaps, with your comments below, we are shifting to another
interesting, but not unrelated topic.
Interested in pursuing this subject?
The core question appears to be: Is Nature lawful?
Andy said:
>Although this idea of logic turning itself into material reality sounds
>really crazy, it is actually no worse than the normal
>scientific-materialist view which accepts that Nature "obeys laws" and a
>study of its movement allows people to "discover" these laws in Nature.
>This of course begs such questions are why Nature should choose to obey
>laws, and who is making the laws in which particular Parliament. In short,
>where did these laws come from? And if, in the history of science, laws
>are replaced by other laws, how exactly do we understand the objectivity
>of these laws. If they are part of nature exactly what are they made of?
George Novack addressed the issue of the lawfulness of nature in many of
his writings. In Pragmatism Vs. Marxism: An Appraisal of John Dewey's
Philosophy (1975) Novack has a sub-section entitled "Dewey's Version of
Scientific Laws" (pages 99-102), where Novack contrasts his interpretation
of the dialectical materialist view of the lawfulness of nature with his
interpretation of John Dewey's pragmatist view on the question.
Says Novack, p 99-100:
"According to materialists, scientific laws formulate objective
characteristics of events, processes, and things - their intrinsic features
and basic properties, their connections and modes of development. They are
based on recurrences of these aspects in nature, as well as in society and
thought. The actual inner and essential relationships of nature are
expressed in the laws of movement of the planets, laws of diffusion of
gases, laws of chemical action, heredity, organic evolution, etc.
"These objective connections of the physical world exist independently of
human sensation and thought. The abstractive capacity of the intellect
picks out the determinative features of phenomena - setting aside what is
individual, accidental, and incidental - and states them in conceptual,
verbal or mathematical forms. This conception of the content of laws as
the essential determinative features of events conforms to the practical
assumptions of scientists as they carry on their work of investigating
natural processes in diverse fields.
"Dewey had a different view of the laws of science. For him these laws do
not reflect the real relations and properties of the physical world. They
are as completely conceptual and subjective in character as the causal
relation itself. The laws of science, he writes, "are means, through the
media respectively of operations of reasoning (discourse) and of
observation, for determining existential (spatial-temporal) connections of
concrete materials in such a way that the latter constitute a coherent
individualized situation" (Logic, pp 455-56).
"His contention that scientific laws "determine existential connections of
concrete materials" stands things on their head. On the contrary, it is
"the existential (spatial-temporal) connections of concrete materials"
which, if they are broad and necessary enough, determine the content of
laws. Laws operate in the external world before their effects are observed
and analyzed by us. They are discovered as the outcome of prolonged
scientific investigation."
Novack's reasoning proposes some answers to the questions you are raising
about the origin, content and objectivity of scientific laws, and the
so-called lawfulness of Nature. Dewey, of course, offered a different set
of answers.
What are your thoughts?
- Steve
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