Kant, Judgment and the Mind

It always seemed to me, when I was taking physics, that I wasn't really being taught physics. Or, at least, that what was really important about physics was a secret art behind it on which you were tested, but about which the instructors maintained a conspiratorial silence. Newton's Three Laws, for instance, are straightforward in statement and not terribly difficult to understand. But understanding Newton's Three Laws is not really what physics courses are about.

Newton's Laws are cast in terms of forces, masses and accelerations. Such things don't appear on physics tests. What you get on physics tests are pulleys, ramps, blocks, rockets, skiers, race cars, trains, planes and automobiles. The secret art behind physics that is necessary for the tests is how to go from the race cars and blocks of real life to the forces, masses and accelerations of Newtonian theory. Once you've made that translation, the application of Newton's laws is straightforward and usually little more than routine. But in my experience, physics instruction stumbled just where it was needed most - a clear, methodical way to make the translation from real beings like blocks and pulleys to the physical abstractions. This isn't to say that such translations weren't extensively practiced; they were, but the practice was an end in itself. You either "got it" from extensive practice and examples of successful solutions, or you didn't. The critical skill involved in performing physics was just the one instructors couldn't say much about.

It wasn't until I read Kant that I understood why this was so. The relevant passage is in the Critique of Pure Reason, The Transcendental Analytic, Second Book, The Analytic Principles, Introduction - On the transcendental power of judgment in general.

If the understanding in general is explained as the faculty of rules, then the power of judgment is the faculty of subsuming under rules. i.e. of determining whether something stands under a given rule (casus datae legis) or not. General logic contains no precepts at all for the power of judgment, and moreover cannot contain them. For since it abstracts from all content of cognition, nothing remains to it but the business of analytically dividing the mere form of cognition into concepts, judgments and inferences, and thereby achieving formal rules for all use of the understanding. Now if it wanted to show generally how one ought to subsume under these rules, i.e., distinguish whether something stands under them or not, this could not happen except once again through a rule. But just because this is a rule, it would demand another instruction for the power of judgment, and it becomes clear that although the understanding is certainly capable of being instructed and equipped through rules, the power of judgment is a special talent that cannot be taught but only practiced. Thus this is also what is specific to so-called mother-wit, the lack of which cannot be made good by any school; for, although such a school can provide a limited understanding with plenty of rules borrowed from the insight of others and as it were graft these onto it, nevertheless the faculty of making use of them correctly must belong to the student himself, and in the absence of such a natural gift no rule that one might prescribe to him for this aim is safe from misuse. A physician therefore, a judge, or a statesmen, can have many fine pathological, juridical, or political rules in his head, of which he can even be a thorough teacher, and yet can easily stumble in their application, either because he is lacking in natural power of judgment (though not in understanding), and to be sure understand the universal in abstracto but cannot distinguish whether a case in concreto belongs under it, or also because he has not received adequate training for this judgement through examples and actual business.

The secret art I sensed behind physics is what Kant calls judgment; the faculty of subsuming the concrete particular under general rules. In the case of physics, the general rules are Newton's Three Laws, the concrete particular are the blocks and pulleys of any given problem. Kant explains why instructors can't do much more than provide examples in developing the faculty of judgment. Using an argument to infinity, he notes that were instructors able to formulate a rule to apply the rules, that would only push the difficulty back one step, because it would still require an act of judgment to apply the meta-rule.

Kant recognized the deep mystery behind modern empirical science. That science is so powerful and exact, Kant saw, because it is formulated in terms that the mind itself creates. Chet Raymo notes this in Ch. 1 of Skeptics and True Believers, but he doesn't follow through on its deep implications:

"No scientist will dispute that 'atom' is a made-up concept; however, the concept 'atom' is the most concise way - perhaps the only way - to make sense of our detailed, quantitative experience of the material world."

Raymo doesn't mention the linkage Kant saw in the Critique: "atom" is the most concise way to make sense of experience because it is a "made-up" concept. Kant further saw that because science conducts itself in terms of "made-up" concepts, there will always be an unfathomable mystery at the bottom of both science and the mind that conducts it. On the objective side, that mystery is captured in the distinction between the phenomenal (things as they appear to us through our scientific concepts) and the noumenal (things as they are in themselves.) We know reality through our "made-up" concept of "atom." This is the human mind's "take" on reality; it surely reflects something true about reality, but it is reality filtered through the concepts the mind makes up to make reality intelligible. We can be confident that the concept "atom" reflects something true about reality, and even that it is our best way of getting at that truth, but we have no way of accessing the "pre-filtered" reality (the noumena) prior to its interpretation through the concept "atom."

On the subjective side, the mystery is reflected in the act of judgment, which is the act of the mind subsuming particular reality under the general rules of science, including general scientific concepts. The act of judgment is prior to science itself, since science only works with its own concepts, and can have nothing to say about how the mind captures reality in the concepts that make science itself possible. Newtonian physics gets rolling with forces, masses and accelerations; these are the only things it "knows." How the mind subsumes reality under Newtonian concepts is a question Newtonian science, or any other science, can say nothing about. This is why physics instructors can provide practice in the act of judgment, but can do no more than that.

An immediate conclusion from Kant's Critique is that a "science of the mind" of the kind being hotly pursued today, is an exercise in futility. The mind that "makes-up" the concepts that make science itself possible will always be invisible to that science, since it is always prior to it. As soon as science starts, it has left behind the mind that made science possible. What the mind can know at this point is only the mind as it appears on the far side of its scientific concepts; in other words, the mind only insofar as the act of scientific judgment has already occurred.

This explains why contemporary scientists and philosophers of the mind seem so often to talk past each other. None of them have really understood Kant and taken him to heart. They all start their philo-scientific investigations the way Kant says they must start, with a pre-scientific rendering of reality under scientific concepts through an act of judgment. This rendering is the most crucial and decisive part of their investigation, but is generally the part least talked about and the most taken for granted. It usually happens in an introduction or a couple of paragraphs, followed by hundreds and hundreds of pages of conclusions from the mind science that results from that initial pre-scientific judgment. Since there is no guarantee that everyone's pre-scientific judgments will be the same, there is no guarantee that all the mind researchers will make the same acts of judgment, and so no guarantee that they will arrive at the same conclusions, or even that they will conduct science in a way that others researchers find legitimate. But there is no recognition that the reason the results are different isn't because the science is different, but because the pre-science is different, and no amount of scientific research can ever resolve the difference.

The acrimony results because every mind researcher senses that his rivals are "stealing a base", but he is at a loss as to say how. Everyone is right that everyone else is stealing a base, of course, because the base stolen is the pre-scientific act of judgment that makes science possible. We've lost the philosophical self-awareness of a great philosopher like Immanuel Kant, who recognized that his own subjective act of judgment is not absolute and is not binding on everyone else. The Critique is truly a philosophical work, because it invites the reader's mind to know itself through itself, relying on its own insight and acts of judgment, not taking Kant's judgments to be absolute. Instead, the mind researcher of today takes his own act of judgment to be absolute, although not self-consciously, and implicitly demands that everyone else submit to it. Of course, all the other researchers want to start their research with their own absolute acts of judgment, and the fight is on.

Daniel Dennett, inadvertently, provides a window into this phenomenon with his concept of "heterophenomenology", his take on how mind science should be conducted, as described in Consciousness Explained. Under heterophenomenology, the mind researcher interviews a subject and gets the subject's account and interpretation of his own experience. He claims to see trees and birds, to experience emotions, feel pain, and even - Dennett's ultimate target - to experience a sense of self. During the interview, the researcher withholds judgment concerning the truth of the subject's experience; although it may seem to the subject that he saw trees or birds, or seem to him that he has a self, this all may in fact be an illusion. This is something that will be decided in the course of the researcher's later scientific investigations of the mind, which will follow on the collection of a set of interviews and lab work.

With his interviews in hand, the researcher begins his investigations. How does he do it? By beginning with acts of pre-scientific judgment of the kind he denied to his interview subjects. He decides that the "mind" or the "self" is something shadowy and possibly unreal, and that the "brain" is a hard, metaphysical fact, the reality of which is unchallengeable. What about the birds and trees the subject claims to have seen? Those may or may not be real, pending the outcome of the investigation, but the investigator's own sense that he was a real interviewer interviewing a real subject is not subject to any doubt, in fact being a prerequisite to get the scientific investigation under way. What has happened is very simple: The investigator has simply assumed that his own act of judgment is absolute with respect to his subject's acts of judgment. This is what separates Dennett, and the general run of mind researchers, from Immanuel Kant, whom they are still way behind even if they think they are miles in front of him.

Belief in God as Wish Fulfillment

I picked up Chet Raymo's Skeptics and True Believers at the used book store today for a couple of bucks.

In the Introduction, Raymo divides the world into Skeptics and True Believers (no points for guessing which category Raymo prefers). Here is what he says about the forces pushing one to be a True Believer:

"The forces that nudge us toward True Belief are pervasive and well-nigh irresistible. Supernatural faith systems provide a degree of emotional security that skepticism cannot provide. Who among us would not prefer to believe that there exists a divine parent who has our best interest at heart? Who among us would not prefer to believe that we will live forever? Skepticism, on the other hand, offers only uncertainty and doubt. What keeps scientific skepticism on track, against the individual's need for emotional security, is a highly evolved social structure, including professional associations and university departments, peer-reviewed literature, meetings and conferences, and a language that relies heavily on mathematics and specialized nomenclature."

Raymo intends the questions in the middle of the paragraph to be rhetorical, but he doesn't seem to see that the questions cut both ways. A "divine parent" who has our best interests at heart, is also a divine parent who judges us and places demands on us. Anyone who prefers not to have his "freedom" restricted by Commandments or requirements to go to Mass and Confession, is someone who prefers not to have a divine parent. Who among us would prefer to have a divine parent judging us and demanding we obey his Commandments?

As far as immortal life, who would prefer to live forever if that life is damned to Hell? That's the downside to immortality; our actions in this life determine our eternal destiny, and that destiny is forever. Kierkegaard brilliantly (and horrifyingly) probes the psychology of eternal despair in The Sickness Unto Death. The soul in despair wants to die, but cannot. Who would prefer to believe that our deeds haunt us into eternity?

I see the "wish fulfillment" argument as a wash when it comes to God. Every theistic wish that might be fulfilled by the existence of God (the comfort of a divine parent looking out for us), has a parallel atheistic wish (the non-existence of God leaves me free to indulge my desires without guilt or fear of divine wrath.) The desire for immortal life is countered by the fear that it might mean having to endure the unendurable. The desire to believe in a guardian angel is countered by the desire to believe that evil spirits bent on our destruction are but a myth, etc.

I've always found the wish-fulfillment argument a non-sequiter in any case, since just because something fulfills a wish doesn't mean it isn't true. Sometimes your fondest wishes do come true.

Who would not prefer to believe that?

A definition of scientism

Dictionary.com has the following definition of scientism:

"The belief that the assumptions, methods of research, etc., of the physical and biological sciences are equally appropriate and essential to all other disciplines, including the humanities and the social sciences."

I think this is a weak definition. Those with a scientistic mentality don't always think that the methods of the hard sciences are appropriate to the humanities. What they think is that the methods of the hard sciences are the only methods that can result in knowledge. Their conclusion is not that scientific methods are appropriate to the humanities, but that the humanities don't issue in knowledge because they cannot be pursued according to scientific methods.

I prefer the following definition of scientism, which may not be original with me, although I have not come across it in quite this formulation:

"Scientism is the mistake of taking the results of science to be more firmly known than its prerequisites."

It is, in other words, to think physics is more certain than metaphysics. It is to be confident that the atoms, electrons, quarks and black holes that result from scientific inquiry are "really real", but be suspicious of the microscopes, telescopes and centrifuges the scientist uses to deduce those electrons and black holes. This suspicion may even extend to the mind of the scientist who conducted the science.

Another way of saying it is that the scientistic mindset finds the everyday world of common experience to be more metaphysically suspect than the world constructed by scientific inquiry. It is to be more confident of the reality of bosons and protons than it is of cars, trees or the wind. The self-contradiction of scientism is that the possibility of science depends on the reality of the world of common experience; if the world of common experience is suspect, then the science that occurs in it is at least as suspect. And it is metaphysics that explores and defends the world of common experience.

At the origin of modern science, Galileo constructed a telescope and looked through it to discover the moons of Jupiter. Galileo's scientific discovery was only possible because he was here, the moons of Jupiter were there, and he was able to look from here to there through the telescope. Galileo did not discover the distinction between here and there; he brought the distinction into science and it is that distinction (among other things) that made his science possible. His science is a science of reality only because the distinction between here and there is a distinction not merely in our minds, but in reality as well. If the distinction between here and there is not real, or is just a fantasy of our minds, then the science conducted in light of it is a fantasy as well. In fact, Galileo's science is a science of reality only to the extent that the metaphysics supporting it is a metaphysics of reality.

The reader may recognize Immanuel Kant lurking in that last paragraph, and Kant is the great philosopher of modernity because he understood the meaning of the presumptions of modern thought and refused to turn from their consequences. He did not try to have his cake and eat it too, as so many modern thinkers do.

The scientistic mindset doesn't get this, and, unlike Kant, tends to think that science can produce the metaphysics that would underwrite its own possibility. This is endemic to contemporary mind science. It is amazing how many mind investigators quote Kant yet how little he is understood. Mind investigators find the metaphysical status of the mind to be dubious and mysterious, but have great confidence in the metaphysical ground of the scientific conclusions this shadowy mind draws. It's as though they think a fictional scientist in a movie can draw real conclusions about the size of the theater in which the movie is shown. Alas, a fictional scientist can only conduct a fictional science... and a science of reality must start in reality, and to do that it needs a metaphysics of reality.

Philosophy and Freedom

It's been a long time since I've visited the blog of the Maverick Philosopher; I like the redesign Bill has done since I last visited. One thing that hasn't changed is his motto:

"Study everything, join nothing."

My latest visit reminded me that I've always instinctively recoiled from the motto. What Bill precisely means by it is explored more fully in this post. For my part, the motto seems to exclude from philosophy exactly that which I hope to get from it and, perhaps, what is crucial to philosophy as classically conceived. This post is an exploration of this theme.

In the dialog Crito, Socrates is waiting in prison for his execution and is offered a chance to escape. Crito agrees with him that the question of escape is ultimately one of justice, so they must consider the question of whether it is just for Socrates to escape. Socrates, briefly attempting to justify escape, considers the question in terms we would probably find natural:

"Or shall I answer the Laws, 'The reason is that the state wronged me, and did not judge the case right?'"

Socrates replies in the voice of the Laws, and his response is essentially this: It is not the prerogative of Socrates and Crito to judge whether the state has decided the case correctly. The Law and the State exist prior to Socrates, in many senses of the term, and the decision to even consider the possibility that escape might be justified betrays a misunderstanding of human existence. Socrates "joined" the City by the fact of his birth, and existence comes with duties and obligations that bind the philosopher as much as anyone else:

"First of all, did we not bring you into life, and through us your father took your mother, and begat you? ... Well, the laws about feeding the child and education in which you were brought up. Did not those which had that duty do well in directing your father to educate you in mind and body?... When you had been born and brought up and educated, could you say in the first place that your were not our offspring and our slave, you and your ancestors also? And if this is so, do you think you have equal rights with us, and whatever we try to do to you, do you think you also have a right to do to us?"

The response Socrates gives in the voice of the Laws is not merely a legal response. It is a philosophical one. If the vocation of the philosopher is to know and live the truth, then that vocation is betrayed when the philosopher does not acknowledge the duties and obligations that human existence necessarily involves. But it is more than this. We are by nature social animals; the obligations of country, family and religion are not arbitrary or heteronomous impositions on human nature. They are essential components to any human existence. It is natural for us to be joined to others and under the obligations of state, family and religion (among others). For the philosopher to know and live the truth about himself, he must know and live the truth about the social nature of human existence. In other words, "joining" is not something the philosopher should flee but something he should embrace, for it is only in "joining" that he can experience, or even know, the full truth about human being.

This doesn't say it quite right, because "joining" implies some prior state of human existence, absent obligation, and from which the person chooses or not to "join." The philosophical point I am making is that there is no such prior, obligation-free state of existence. Our existence is that of one already joined. This is why Socrates, even though he philosophically challenged the religion of Athens, nonetheless fulfilled its obligations. He understood that the philosophical vocation is not a free pass to ignore duty and obligation; more deeply, since duty and obligation are natural to human existence, the philosophical vocation can only be fulfilled by experiencing duty and obligation in its depths, not avoiding it wherever possible. The Socratic challenge to religion occurred from within religion and was itself an expression of religion purifying itself. Indeed, this is the only way true reform can happen, and was the path later followed by St. Thomas Aquinas and Soren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard has this to say about the difference between the classical and the modern philosopher:

"In Greece, as in the youth of philosophy generally, it was found difficult to win through to the abstract and to leave existence, which always gives the particular; in modern times, on the other hand, it has become difficult to reach existence. The process of abstraction is easy enough for us, but we also desert existence more and more, and the realm of pure thought is the extreme limit of such desertion.

In Greece, philosophizing was a mode of action, and the philosopher was therefore an existing individual. He may not have possessed a great amount of knowledge, but what he did know he knew to some profit, because he busied himself early and late with the same thing." [Concluding Unscientific Postscript, The Subjective Thinker 2.]

When he speaks of the individual and existence, Kierkegaard's meaning includes the duties and obligations specific to a person's individual existence. Socrates knew, "to his profit", that he was born and lived as a citizen of Athens and that his philosophical vocation could not entail a flight from Athens, but rather must involve an exploration of the mystery of obligation in his own specific, subjective context in Athens. We may, indeed, see Socrates' entire philosophical career as a fulfillment of his philosophical obligation to purify Athens from within; his willingness to die in Athens rather than escape, fully aware of the philosophical meaning of this submission, representing a "joining" to the city of unprecedented depth.

The monastic vocation of St. Thomas Aquinas, similarly, was not in tension with his philosophical vocation. St. Thomas, like Socrates, was one of those individuals born with the natural wisdom to "remain in existence" and embrace duty rather than "abstract" himself from it. It was only because he remained aware of the subjective truth of human existence in his monastic vocation, that his philosophical vocation had the effect it did. Like Socrates, St. Thomas offered a philosophical challenge to the religion of his day, offering a Christian interpretation of Aristotle that challenged the reigning Platonism. Although St. Thomas's doctrines were initially proscribed by the Bishop of Paris, his philosophy was later embraced by the universal Church, in no small part because of the manifest holiness of the man St. Thomas (see Etienne Gilson's the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on this.) St. Thomas's reformation of Christian philosophy was more easily accepted because, coming from St. Thomas, a man who clearly fulfilled the meaning of Christian existence in his own life, it was easier to trust that his philosophy was authentically Christian as well.

Returning to the motto ("Study everything, join nothing"), we may ask what "everything" includes. Does it include the human things - friendship, love, faith, hope, duty, honor, responsibility, justice, among others? I submit that none of these things can be understood from the outside; from studying them without joining them. And joining them means joining some human community of which they are an aspect. Plato held that the young should not be taught philosophy because they do not have the experience to make it meaningful. They don't have the "data" of philosophy, as it were. The data only comes from life, and the more "joined" that life the better. Socrates was a military veteran and St. Thomas an avowed mendicant friar.

I think my last foray over to the Maverick Philosopher involved the book Into the Wild. If you don't recall, this is the story of Chris McCandless, a young man eventually found dead living on his own in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan countryside. McCandless was an intelligent and passionate young man, and his foray into the Alaskan wilderness was not his first adventure of this type. McCandless was clearly a man "looking for something" in the philosophical sense, and his extreme adventures were an attempt to break through to some philosophical or spiritual state of being. He was a young man of some virtue, and his story is reminiscent of medieval figures like St. Francis of Assisi, abandoning all in favor of a higher vocation. But the strongest impression I got from reading Into the Wild was the essential immaturity of what McCandless was attempting. What all his adventures had in common was that they strictly avoided any obligation or responsibility. This is what separates him from someone like St. Francis. Sometimes McCandless would take odd jobs (like mucking out cattle pens), and although he was always well-regarded in his work, he would never stay in the same job for long. My impression was that as soon as he began to develop some local ties, to become "rooted" in a community, he would see that as a signal to move on. This is the modern mistake of seeing the meaning of freedom in freedom from obligation and responsibility, of not being "joined" to anything. But such "freedom" involves a distortion of the meaning of human existence, Unfortunately, philosophers in the old mold of St. Thomas or Socrates are rare in the modern university, so McCandless never learned this lesson despite his formal philosophical education. Even more unfortunately, a passionate soul like McCandless will finally only find frustration in such a free-floating existence; instead of finding true meaning in the free submission to something greater than himself, he will seek it in ever more radical and dangerous individual experiences, experiences that may eventually become lethal.

The banner on my blog is not intended as a rejoinder to the Maverick Philosopher's motto, but it functions as one nonetheless. The subjective thinker does not wish to study without joining, but to understand himself in the context of his concrete existence, with its relationships, obligations and duties. He wishes to think philosophically, that is in terms of abstract universals like "justice", "friendship" and "love", but with reference to the specifics of his own existence - "to understand the abstract concretely."

The Globe on Trial by Ordeal

The Boston Sunday Globe has a fascinating article on the medieval practice of trial by ordeal here. The most amazing aspect is the positive account the article gives for the Church's relationship to such trials - any compliment to the Church by the Globe being itself a miracle.

Aristotelian Principles of Engineering

The hiatus in my blogging was due to the fact that, early in October, I learned that the company I worked for was going out of business. Sunset for the company was January 1, so I had from October through December to find another position. As you can imagine, this caused me more than a little anxiety, being responsible for a family of five in this economic environment.

Anyway, I eventually was offered a new position on Dec. 23. Surprisingly enough, it was Aristotle who helped me land this job. Normally in interviewing for these technical positions (I work as a software engineer), I keep silent about my passion for philosophy. But in this interview, I decided to be a little more bold, especially as I didn't think I was particularly well-qualified for the job - and these days, you have to be outstandingly well-qualifed to even be considered. So I figured what the heck, and went on for a little bit about Aristotle. My interviewer, to my surprise, showed real interest and we talked philosophy for a while. The interview was on Friday, and on Saturday I wrote a paper expanding on some of my ideas. I emailed it to him, and the next week I was offered a job. Here is the paper I wrote:


Aristotelian Principles of Engineering

Conventional and Unconventional Thinking

Back in my undergraduate days, a psychology professor conducted an in-class experiment with scissors and string that has stuck with me. I cannot recall all the details of the experiment, but I do remember that it consisted of a challenge to retrieve an object some distance away without touching it with your hands or moving from your spot. The subject was allowed a pair of scissors and a length of string with which to complete the task. It turned out it could be accomplished by tying the string to the scissors, throwing the scissors over and on top of the object, and then using the weight of the scissors to drag back the object. The psychological point of the experiment was that the conventional use of scissors (as something with which to cut string) often prevented the subject from seeing an unconventional solution involving scissors. When the experiment was conducted with the scissors replaced with a conventional weighting object like a paperweight, nearly all subjects quickly perceived the solution.

The unconventional solution of problems is, of course, the phenomenon that has come to be known by the phrase "thinking outside the box", now virtually a cliche. The ability to find unconventional solutions is valuable, but it occurred to me that the vast majority of our thinking is necessarily conventional - "thinking inside the box." Since so much of our thinking is conventional, rather than seeking ways to escape conventional thinking into unconventionality, why not find ways to make our conventional thinking as fruitful as possible? That is the theme of this paper - the investigation of conventional thinking with specific reference to engineering.

Let us consider a little more deeply the meaning of "conventional." With respect to scissors and string, it is not arbitrary or accidental that the conventional use of scissors is to cut string; scissors were designed for that very purpose. The conventional use of scissors reflects their fundamental nature. To think conventionally, then, is to think in terms of nature. To think well conventionally is to think well in terms of nature.

Who shall teach us how to think well about nature, and therefore to think well conventionally? It may seem surprising that an ancient Greek philosopher can teach us valuable lessons about nature, and in particular lessons valuable to modern engineering. Skepticism is only increased when we remember that Aristotle's physics was decisively overthrown by the physics of Newton in the 17th century. Nevertheless, I have found that Aristotle, the great classical philosopher of nature, has important lessons to teach about modern engineering. Whether there is irony in the unconventional use of Aristotle to understand conventional thinking in modern engineering, is a decision I will leave to the reader.

Aristotle's Understanding of Nature - The Four Causes

Aristotle taught that we understand something only if we understand its causes. In his Physics, he analyzes causes into four types: The final cause, or the point or purpose of something (e.g. scissors are for cutting); the formal cause or the principles that make something what it is (scissors consist of two blades working in tandem to achieve a cutting); the material cause or the "stuff" of which something is made (scissors are made from steel or plastic blades); and the efficient cause or the source of its coming into being (scissors are put together in a factory.) Our modern minds tend to think of causation only in terms of the efficient cause, but it is worthwhile to consider Aristotle's other three causes.

The final cause, for instance, is not merely the point of something but is the goal (telos) of its existence. Aristotle thought that all natural beings have a tendency or drive to fulfill their individual natures; fire "wants" to consume things in flames. Whatever our view of the ultimate reality of such an internal drive, thinking in its terms can provide a different and potentially valuable perspective on systems. In our scissors and string solution, for example, if we think of scissors as "wanting" to cut things, then we can perceive a certain instability and even danger in our solution. Even though we are only using the scissors as a weight, they still retain their sharp blades and hinged connection. The blades can fly about when we toss them, perhaps slicing through the string, sticking into a surface, or possibly injuring someone. The scissors will continue to "try" to cut things even though cutting is not part of the intent of our solution. More generally, to the extent that our solution does not permit its elements to fulfill their teloi, or is in conflict with them, it will include elements that may contribute to instability. Solutions with elements fulfilling their teloi will tend to increase stability; replacing the scissors with a paperweight (an object with no telos beyond weighting) in our experimental solution would create a more stable system.

There is something even deeper going on as beings fulfill their teloi. Aristotle teaches that being exists in two primary modes: Act and potency. An acorn is an actual nut and a potential oak tree. The careers of temporal beings can be thought of as a series of movements between potentiality and actuality, as an acorn grows from being a potential oak tree into an actual oak tree. The telos of something points the direction from potentiality towards full actuality. But things can act only insofar as they exist; therefore things are more powerful insofar as they are actualized, or insofar as they have fulfilled their teloi. When we engineer our solution such that its elements fulfill their teloi as much as possible, we know that they are operating at their maximum power. Conversely, a clue that our solution may not be optimal is the discovery that its elements are not employed at full actuality or against their teloi.

Let me flesh out these principles with an example from software engineering. We may be able to use any particular software language to solve any particular problem, just as we can use a pair of scissors as a paperweight. We have nature working for us, however, if we match the nature of the language to the nature of the problem at hand. The C programming language was designed as a "general-purpose programming language... not specialized to any particular area of application." It is a relatively "low-level" language, has an "absence of restrictions", is not a "strongly-typed language" and one that "retains the basic philosophy that programmers know what they are doing."[1] If we use C in accord with its nature, then we will use it for low-level programming that does not permit restrictions, and we will remain careful and self-disciplined in its use. Only then will C function at its maximum power. C++ is an extension of C that provides support for data abstractions and object-oriented design.[2] If C++ is part of our solution, then our solution will tend to be maximally powerful and stable if the software reflects the abstract and object-oriented nature of C++; that is, if the software fulfills the telos of C++.

Aristotle's Understanding of Nature - Hierarchy

Aristotle's understanding of nature was hierarchical. Things do not exist in isolation but in the context of intelligible systems. Aristotle uses the example of the eye, which is truly itself only when it is in the body and functioning properly. An eye in a lab dish is, for Aristotle, something that is not really "being" an eye at all. So the eye can fulfill itself only in the context of a human being that is also fulfilling itself. The telos of the eye consists of more than completing itself in an act of vision; it finds its true fulfillment in the flourishing of the complete human being.

We can think along similar lines concerning the elements of our engineering solutions. It's not enough that a particular element be perfectly designed in itself. It truly fulfills its telos only to the extent that it goes beyond its own perfection to contribute to the perfection of the overall system. Our C++ solution may evidence isolated perfection in its use of object-oriented principles, but that solution is not optimal if it does not promote the operation of the overall system in the best possible way. It may be that, by compromising object-oriented principles somewhat, we can save resources (e.g. processing overhead) that are particularly sensitive in a certain system. Such a solution fulfills the "remote" final cause more fully at the expense of the "local" final cause, and is more perfect since the local final cause is in service to the final cause of the system as a whole. Final causes, teloi, find their meaning in a downward hierarchy or, if we prefer it this way, the teloi of the elements of a well-made system come together in a symphony expressed in the telos of the complete system.

The Philosophical Engineer

Aristotle begins his Metaphysics by stating that "All men by nature desire to know." He means by this more than knowing external nature. He means as well man knowing himself in his own act. The Aristotelian engineer, then, is an engineer self-consciously aware of what he is doing as an engineer. He understands the relationship of formal, final, material and efficient causes, the hierarchical relationship of final causes to each other, and his own role as the agent who brings each element to its perfection in the context of an entire solution. He knows how to think well in terms of nature, to think well conventionally.

But he can do more than this. There are times when conventional solutions are called for, and others when unconventional solutions should be sought. If the Aristotelian engineer understands himself as an engineer, he will have some idea when he is in either situation. Consider for the last time our scissors and string experiment. Its most outstanding feature are the restrictions on the solution. We can only use string and a pair of scissors and cannot move from our spot. We are not in the position of finding the appropriate elements to include in a complete solution; we are handed the elements and must make of them the best we can. This is a situation that calls for unconventional thinking. In fact, a wise student subjected to this experiment may very well guess this from the restrictions.

In our engineering life, we should sense that unconventional solutions may be required when we are subject to restrictions in time, materials or methods. To the extent that we are not subject to restrictions, we should try to think well in a conventional manner; that is, according to the natures of the problem and its possible solutions. It is the difference between constructing a carbon dioxide scrubber in the development phase of the Apollo program, and constructing one from scratch in the Apollo 13 capsule after an explosion. The former may be a model of elegant engineering, the latter a hodgepodge of duct tape and cardboard that nonetheless gets the job done.

In any case, it is part of good conventional thinking to know when conventional thinking has reached its limits or is inappropriate. The Aristotelian engineer knows when to stop thinking like Aristotle.

[1] Kernighan and Ritchie,The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition, Preface to the First Edition.
[2] Stanley Lippman,C++ Primer, Preface.

Scientism Summary

I have been very busy with other things and have been unable to blog for these last several months. This unfortunate situation will continue for a little while longer.

But I can't let pass John Derbyshire's neat summary of scientism at the Corner on National Review Online. Like every thinker in the thrall of scientism, Derbyshire can't see that his formulation denies its own possibility. Take the last paragraph:

We don't know much about the natural world; what we don't know is vastly more than what we do know; and there are squishy areas where we aren't sure whether we know or don't know. The things we do know to high probability, though, we know through methodical inquiry, observation, measurement, classification, discussion, comparison of results, consensus — through science. The rest is wishful thinking, power games, social fads, and the sleep of reason.

Let me call the proposition "The things we know to high probability we know through methodical inquiry, observation, measurement, classification, etc.. - through science" proposition S. Now proposition S is not itself known through the methods it specifies, the methods of science. Derbyshire did not go into the lab and measure the molar mass of proposition S vs. the molar mass of some other proposition, say "Truth is best known through philosophical dialog" or "Science can only defend itself through philosophy, and if philosophy is undermined, science inevitably will be as well." No, proposition S is either known philosophically or it is not known at all. But proposition S denies "high probability" to anything other than that which is known through the methods of science; therefore it cannot be known with high probability. We can know it at most with low-probability. In fact, according to Derb's epistemology, it's got to be either wishful thinking, power games, social fads or the sleep of reason. I wonder which he prefers.

We could leave proposition S to its absurd self-destruction, if scientism were the only casualty. Unfortunately Derbyshire's self-contradictory scientism puts science itself in danger; proposition S seems to be the only possible defense of science conceivable to many. But science can only truly be defended through a genuine philosophy of knowledge; a philosophy that explores the ways of knowing and the relationships between them. Such a philosophy would certainly acknowledge the methodical power and certainty of science and provide a philosophical foundation for them (as Kant did in the Critique of Pure Reason.) Defending science by undermining philosophy can't work, anymore than science can be defended by undermining arithmetic.

Beyond all that, I am always fascinated with the man who can tell us about things he himself denies he knows. We know very little about the natural world, Derbyshire says, compared with what we don't know. How does he know how much we don't know? He doesn't say, for the good reason that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. At least I don't know what I don't know and can't say anything about it, including how much of it is lurking out there. Derb, however, can somehow get a quantitative estimate of what he doesn't know, no doubt through the best practices of science - inquiry, observation and measurement and whatnot. Now that's some powerful science.