Second Enlightenment (F1,F2)
Georges Metanomski
Nevertheless, due to its IMO general interest I'll mail it also
to lists which don't count Antonio as member as well as to some individual addresses.
We have agreed with Antonio to structure our issue as follows
1. Fundamental Research, (or in our context Scientific Revolution)
2. Ideology
3. Social Awareness
4. Establishment
However, a step is clearly missing, to wit the ontology, without which
ideology hangs in the air.
Consequently, the structure will look:
X1. Scientific Revolution
X2. Ontology
X3. Ideology
X4. Social awareness
X5. Establishment
with X=F/S respectively for the first/second enlightenment. Indeed,
I propose to start by the first as guidance to the formulation of
the second and warning of errors to be avoided.
The present post is limited to the steps F1,F2 of the first
enlightenment.
=====
F1, the First Scientific Revolution is mainly due to
-Galileo: Relativity and axiomatic method restricting science to
deductive theories inductively verifiable by facts.
-Descartes: Subjective foundation of cognition and its fuzziness
(permanent doubt); algebraizing of geometry which opened the way
to calculus and to Newton's Model.
-Newton: Calculus and Gravity Model.
F1 was based upon the following axioms:
F1A1.Mechanics is covariant among inertial referentials by Galilean
Transformation.
F1A2.Space and time are absolute and affine which leads to translative
Galilean Transformation and its additivity of speeds.
F1A3.Space has the discrete fabric of "billiard balls".
F1A4.Action and causality is local, reduced to neighboring "balls".
We shall see below that F2-ontology took over and completed those
axioms, which unfortunately led to paradoxes. However, F1 already
leads by itself to two famous "Newton's paradoxes":
NP1.Gravity acts at large distances which contradicts the
fabric of "billiard balls" and the principle of local action.
NP2.SPACE (distance) determines the Gravity Force, which does
not act in any way on SPACE, thus contradicting the principle
of action/reaction
The paradoxes falsified the axioms of absolute time-space and of
the naive, discrete "billiard ball" locality. Yet, they were not
dropped, but maintained as dogma, which paved the way to Aether
and to ill-founding of logic and mathematics.
Warning for S1-the second scientific revolution: check if its
axioms don't lead to falsifying contradictions and paradoxes.
=====
F2.
Ontology of the first enlightenment was formulated by Kant.
Instead of traditional empty speculations he chose the sincere,
bona fide attitude of deriving Ontology from the bedrock premise of
empirically verifiable science. However, no matter how rigorous
the inference, the conclusion is only as good as the
premise: from paradoxical science Kant rigorously derived
a paradoxical ontology. While his ontology lost for us all avail,
his method and attitude are excellent example and guidance for
those who, in our days, seek to understand the Second Enlightenment.
Example of sincerity, rigor and respect for Science. Guidance
resumed in "Sapere Aude", "Dare to Reason!".
Brief recall of Kant's axioms:
F2A1: necessary and universal science exists. (Cartesian fuzziness has
been skipped due to the general overwhelming enthusiasm about Newton's
model).
F2A2: Science is created by inductive inference.
F2A3: Only a priori inference is necessary and
universal.
F2A4: Induction a priori requires subjective representations
a priori (categories).
F2A5: Space and time are subjective categories.
Theorem F2T1, concluded from Axioms: Induction a priori is
possible, necessary and universal.
COMMENTS
F2A1: The First Scientific Revolution had culminated in Newton's
Model, whose rules and concepts were believed exact, necessary and universal. This unjustified belief underlay the F2A1, crucial for
Kant's system.
F2A2: We nearly agree with it: for us the inductive inference
"verifies" rather than "creates" science.
F2A3,F2A4,F2T1: We accept now only induction a posteriori.
F2A5: Kant's main objective and failure was to create the
"Transcendental Logic" with induction a priori in its center.
For this purpose F2A5 was a necessary addition to F2A1.
Kant's "Transcendental Logic" appears to us as a miscarried "prototype"
of Propositional Calculus. He failed due to missing mathematical
tools, mainly the Boole Algebra and to a basic confusion: He considered
only statements, or, as we would say "operands", but neglected the
operators. His 'Logic" was in fact just a classification of statements:
-Statements analytical a priori which we would call deductive,
-Statements synthetical a posteriori which we would call inductive,
-Statements synthetical a priori supposed to support the induction a
priori, unacceptable for us.
This "logic" did not support in any way the inference, which is the
very object and sense of logic.
Warning for S2-the ontology of the second enlightenment:
Ontology properly derived from science has itself to be scientific,
i.e. complete, axiomatic and falsifiable. It should not arbitrarily
reject science's axioms, like Kant rejected the cartesian fuzziness.
But it should not take them uncritically for granted as Kant did with
the absolute and billiard ball structured SPACE. And, most important,
it should ban noumenal phantasms such as Kant's categories.
And last but not least, the proper ontology should found a scientific
logic - empirically applicable and falsifiable.
Georges.
archytas
amongst the rather apparent distaste for him. In terms of needing an
ontology, most scientists appear not well versed or interested and get
along quite well on tropical fish reasoning lines - Einstein was a
case in point in terms of the wonderful work he did with others on the
texts and experimental reports of his day (John Stachel's 'Einstein's
Miraculous Year'). Overall, modern reliableism offers more, but does
not address social awareness, which is mentioned but not pursued
above. Defeasible logic also goes some way towards working with what
is empirically applicable and falsifiable, moveable with what we come
to know.
Georges Metanomski
--- On Mon, 12/14/09, archytas <arch...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> From: archytas <arch...@live.co.uk>
> Subject: [epistemology 11060] Re: Second Enlightenment (F1,F2)
> To: "Epistemology" <episte...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Monday, December 14, 2009, 7:57 AM
> Your model of Kant would burn rather
> well, as straw does. Good points
> amongst the rather apparent distaste for him.
===================
G:
I said:
***
While his ontology lost for us all avail, his method
and attitude are excellent example and guidance for
those who, in our days, seek to understand the Second
Enlightenment.
Example of sincerity, rigor and respect for Science.
Guidance resumed in "Sapere Aude", "Dare to Reason!".
***
That's rather admiration for IMO the greatest philosopher
who went astray due to his contemporary context and to
his own sincerity.
===================
Neil:
> Einstein was a
> case in point in terms of the wonderful work he did with
> others on the
> texts and experimental reports of his day (John Stachel's
> 'Einstein's
> Miraculous Year'). Overall, modern reliableism offers
> more, but does
> not address social awareness, which is mentioned but not
> pursued
> above. Defeasible logic also goes some way towards
> working with what
> is empirically applicable and falsifiable, moveable with
> what we come
> to know.
================
G:
Not bad, but off topic. We are here at F1, F2.
Einstein will come with second enlightenment (S1, S2) of which
he was the bedrock.
Social awareness will come after Ideology.
Logical challenge of the second enlightenment pertains to
its ontology S2.
Thanks for your comments.
Georges.
==============
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