Phenomenological insights can be used to refute "scientism", the notion that scientific facts form the most fundamental reality. Scientism is pervasive even in those who ostensibly reject it. For moderns, it is difficult to conceive of ourselves as anything much distinct from a higher order animal on a small planet which orbits a small sun located in a backwater galaxy in a massive universe. We are equally minute in regard to time; humans have only existed for a few hundred thousand years, only a blink of an eye in terms of the age of the universe. In this context, humanity must be seen as quite small. The notion of a special immortal soul does not pose a significant threat to this worldview; it is not an alternative in itself, its content is in negation, and offers nothing positive. The entire universe is seen as a conglomeration of mass and energy, atoms and quarks, different forms of substance with no innate significance. If this truly is the most fundamental reality, Albert Camus' absurdism seems like the only possibility.
Before we acquiesce to the metaphysical dominion of science, perhaps we should first ask how such a view is possible. The scientific universe requires a scientific view; science is a way of looking at the world. If, then, the scientific universe is the most fundamental way of looking at the world, it stands to reason that the scientific way of looking at the world is the most basic. Because science requires a scientific view of things, it needs someone who is capable of having a view in general; therefore science requires a subject. This insight means that the physico-chemical universe depends on a particular kind of view from a particular kind of being. The scientific world is only possible on the basis of the subjective world, as a form of the subjective world. Before exploring these ramifications, let's back up for a moment and consider what we mean by science.
Heidegger begins is essay Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics by considering the usual account of the difference between modern and ancient science. He identifies three common elements.
First there is the assertion that "modern science start from facts while the medieval started from general speculative propositions and concepts." (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 271) This is an oversimplification: the scholastics dealt with facts, and modern scientist deal with concepts. Galileo and Newton started their systems from general propositions that were not at all obvious facts. Indeed, Heidegger asserts that the greatness of the scientists during the seventeenth century was possible because they were consciously engaging in philosophy. (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 272) Newton and Galileo did not purport to be dealing with bare facts; they conceived of their scientific work as under the philosophical and theological fields.
Secondly there is the assertion that modern science is experimental while ancient science eschews empirical proof. This is a reformulation of the first objection, as the idea is that general principles need no proof, while "facts" do. This not only contradicts the historical data, but the nature of experiential learning. The ancients and medieval tested experience and falsified theories based on the evidence of the senses, for this sort of technique is inherent to using tools. It is true that ancient science did not have the same sort of formal focus on experimentation, but this difference belies a more fundamental conceptual difference about the nature of the world.
Third, modern critics claim that modern science calculates and measure, while ancient science does not. Heidegger states that this too is misguided historically. Both engaged in calculation and measurement, but these were of a different kind in ancient days than in modern days.
The real difference is to be found in "what rules and determines the basic movement of science itself." (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 273) Both ancient and modern science are ruled by mathematics, but mathematics of a different sort. Heidegger warns the mathematical is not to be identified by numerical calculation. Numbers are mathematical, but mathematics is not limited to numbers. Numbers are the most obvious form of mathematics; when we say there are three pencils on the table, the number three is not actually there. We know in advance that things will show up numerically. "The mathemata are the things insofar as we take cognizance of them a what we know them to be in advance, the body as the bodily, the plant-like of the plant, the animal-like of the animal, the thingness of the thing, and so on." Thus learning is never the intake of purely new information, it is delimited according to certain mathematical features.
Any form of inquiry such as science has certain mathematical features, certain a prioris in terms of which the answers will show up. Heidegger locates the fundamental difference in the differing accounts of motion. For Aristotle, the definition of nature is motion and rest. By motion he meant change, which includes movement, but is not limited to it. All bodies engage in motion according to their nature. Fire moves up because that is its proper place, and for the same reason earth moves down. The earth forms the stratum against which motion is possible.
For Newton, on the other hand, the first law of motion applies to all bodies uniformly. Bodies do not move according to their natures, but according to the nature of spatial location and force. The internal impetus for motion, Aristotle's natural principle, ceased to be used to explain things. Instead space became a uniform field much like the Cartesian co-ordinates in which any body may exist in any spatial location. The notion of proper place disappeared. One cannot appeal to experience to justify Newton's first law:
How about this law? It speaks of a body, corpus quod a viribus impressis non cogitur, a body which is left to itself. Where do we find it? There is no such body. There is also no experiment which could ever bring such a body to direct perception. But modern science, in contrast to the mere dialectical, poetic conception of medieval Scholasticism and science, is supposed to be based on experience. Instead, it has such a law at its apex. This law speaks of a thing that does not exist. It demands a fundamental representation of things that contradict the ordinary. (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 289)
Thus the insights of Newtonian physics, despite their utility, do not provide an accurate view of reality if they strip bodies of qualities such as place. All things we perceive show up initially with a particular significance for us, and it takes a very artificial attitude to see things that as substances devoid of significance. Science is a particular mode of objective presence; that is, science is a particular way of looking at the world objectively. It is only one of many such ways (most philosophy falls into this category as well). Having briefly discussed the shortcomings of modern science as an accurate way of looking at the world, we will discuss the way such a view can arise.
To put the question as concretely as possible: if we do not experience anything like a scientific universe, what type of everyday experience do we have that gives rise to this scientific viewpoint? Even the scientist must adopt a peculiar attitude to things to be scientific. When he gets up and eats his breakfast, he does not treat his cereal as bits of matter without inherent significance. Without reflecting at all, he simply eats it. Even when the scientist enters the lab, he engages with in the lab in a pre-reflective way according to their use. When using the microscope, if all goes well, he observes not the microscopes but the microbes which the microscope reveals. Only when the microscope does not work properly does it stand out starkly as a thing to be examined without significance. And only because it before had a significance was it able to do so. This "standing out" which comes about the breakdown of ones purposeful engagement with the world Heidegger calls "objective presence."
Being-in-the-world, as taking care of things, is taken in by the world which it takes care of. In order for knowing to be possible as determining by observation what is objectively present, there must first be a deficiency of having to do with the world and taking care of it. In refraining from all production, manipulation, and so on, taking care of things places itself in the only mode of being-in which is left over, in the mode of simply lingering with... On the basis of this kind of being toward the world which lets us encounter beings within the world solely in their mere outward appearance (eidos), and as a mode of this kind of being, looking explicitly at something thus encountered is possible. (Being and Time, 57)
Thus the scientific universe is possible only on the basis of a practical , purposeful universe which related back to Dasein. The notion of matter without significance stretched out over space without place is possible only on the ground of a basic purposeful engagement with things. The physico-chemical world is not to be confuted with the basic world in which we live, significance and meaning inhere in the world-structure and make objective views such as science possible. This is the basic truth of the world: we and the world are interwoven in such a way that neither us nor the world is possible without one another, and that things in the world -- with or without significance -- becomes possible only in the interaction between subject and world.
Bibliography:
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh. State University of New York Press: (c) 1953.
Martin Heidegger, "Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics" in Basic Writings: Revised and Expanded Edition. HarperSanFransisco: (c) 1993.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colon Smith. Routledge Classics: (c) 1958
Before we acquiesce to the metaphysical dominion of science, perhaps we should first ask how such a view is possible. The scientific universe requires a scientific view; science is a way of looking at the world. If, then, the scientific universe is the most fundamental way of looking at the world, it stands to reason that the scientific way of looking at the world is the most basic. Because science requires a scientific view of things, it needs someone who is capable of having a view in general; therefore science requires a subject. This insight means that the physico-chemical universe depends on a particular kind of view from a particular kind of being. The scientific world is only possible on the basis of the subjective world, as a form of the subjective world. Before exploring these ramifications, let's back up for a moment and consider what we mean by science.
Heidegger begins is essay Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics by considering the usual account of the difference between modern and ancient science. He identifies three common elements.
First there is the assertion that "modern science start from facts while the medieval started from general speculative propositions and concepts." (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 271) This is an oversimplification: the scholastics dealt with facts, and modern scientist deal with concepts. Galileo and Newton started their systems from general propositions that were not at all obvious facts. Indeed, Heidegger asserts that the greatness of the scientists during the seventeenth century was possible because they were consciously engaging in philosophy. (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 272) Newton and Galileo did not purport to be dealing with bare facts; they conceived of their scientific work as under the philosophical and theological fields.
Secondly there is the assertion that modern science is experimental while ancient science eschews empirical proof. This is a reformulation of the first objection, as the idea is that general principles need no proof, while "facts" do. This not only contradicts the historical data, but the nature of experiential learning. The ancients and medieval tested experience and falsified theories based on the evidence of the senses, for this sort of technique is inherent to using tools. It is true that ancient science did not have the same sort of formal focus on experimentation, but this difference belies a more fundamental conceptual difference about the nature of the world.
Third, modern critics claim that modern science calculates and measure, while ancient science does not. Heidegger states that this too is misguided historically. Both engaged in calculation and measurement, but these were of a different kind in ancient days than in modern days.
The real difference is to be found in "what rules and determines the basic movement of science itself." (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 273) Both ancient and modern science are ruled by mathematics, but mathematics of a different sort. Heidegger warns the mathematical is not to be identified by numerical calculation. Numbers are mathematical, but mathematics is not limited to numbers. Numbers are the most obvious form of mathematics; when we say there are three pencils on the table, the number three is not actually there. We know in advance that things will show up numerically. "The mathemata are the things insofar as we take cognizance of them a what we know them to be in advance, the body as the bodily, the plant-like of the plant, the animal-like of the animal, the thingness of the thing, and so on." Thus learning is never the intake of purely new information, it is delimited according to certain mathematical features.
Any form of inquiry such as science has certain mathematical features, certain a prioris in terms of which the answers will show up. Heidegger locates the fundamental difference in the differing accounts of motion. For Aristotle, the definition of nature is motion and rest. By motion he meant change, which includes movement, but is not limited to it. All bodies engage in motion according to their nature. Fire moves up because that is its proper place, and for the same reason earth moves down. The earth forms the stratum against which motion is possible.
For Newton, on the other hand, the first law of motion applies to all bodies uniformly. Bodies do not move according to their natures, but according to the nature of spatial location and force. The internal impetus for motion, Aristotle's natural principle, ceased to be used to explain things. Instead space became a uniform field much like the Cartesian co-ordinates in which any body may exist in any spatial location. The notion of proper place disappeared. One cannot appeal to experience to justify Newton's first law:
How about this law? It speaks of a body, corpus quod a viribus impressis non cogitur, a body which is left to itself. Where do we find it? There is no such body. There is also no experiment which could ever bring such a body to direct perception. But modern science, in contrast to the mere dialectical, poetic conception of medieval Scholasticism and science, is supposed to be based on experience. Instead, it has such a law at its apex. This law speaks of a thing that does not exist. It demands a fundamental representation of things that contradict the ordinary. (Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics, 289)
Thus the insights of Newtonian physics, despite their utility, do not provide an accurate view of reality if they strip bodies of qualities such as place. All things we perceive show up initially with a particular significance for us, and it takes a very artificial attitude to see things that as substances devoid of significance. Science is a particular mode of objective presence; that is, science is a particular way of looking at the world objectively. It is only one of many such ways (most philosophy falls into this category as well). Having briefly discussed the shortcomings of modern science as an accurate way of looking at the world, we will discuss the way such a view can arise.
To put the question as concretely as possible: if we do not experience anything like a scientific universe, what type of everyday experience do we have that gives rise to this scientific viewpoint? Even the scientist must adopt a peculiar attitude to things to be scientific. When he gets up and eats his breakfast, he does not treat his cereal as bits of matter without inherent significance. Without reflecting at all, he simply eats it. Even when the scientist enters the lab, he engages with in the lab in a pre-reflective way according to their use. When using the microscope, if all goes well, he observes not the microscopes but the microbes which the microscope reveals. Only when the microscope does not work properly does it stand out starkly as a thing to be examined without significance. And only because it before had a significance was it able to do so. This "standing out" which comes about the breakdown of ones purposeful engagement with the world Heidegger calls "objective presence."
Being-in-the-world, as taking care of things, is taken in by the world which it takes care of. In order for knowing to be possible as determining by observation what is objectively present, there must first be a deficiency of having to do with the world and taking care of it. In refraining from all production, manipulation, and so on, taking care of things places itself in the only mode of being-in which is left over, in the mode of simply lingering with... On the basis of this kind of being toward the world which lets us encounter beings within the world solely in their mere outward appearance (eidos), and as a mode of this kind of being, looking explicitly at something thus encountered is possible. (Being and Time, 57)
Thus the scientific universe is possible only on the basis of a practical , purposeful universe which related back to Dasein. The notion of matter without significance stretched out over space without place is possible only on the ground of a basic purposeful engagement with things. The physico-chemical world is not to be confuted with the basic world in which we live, significance and meaning inhere in the world-structure and make objective views such as science possible. This is the basic truth of the world: we and the world are interwoven in such a way that neither us nor the world is possible without one another, and that things in the world -- with or without significance -- becomes possible only in the interaction between subject and world.
Bibliography:
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh. State University of New York Press: (c) 1953.
Martin Heidegger, "Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics" in Basic Writings: Revised and Expanded Edition. HarperSanFransisco: (c) 1993.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colon Smith. Routledge Classics: (c) 1958
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