Keith Hutchison

Supernaturalism and the Mechanical Philosophy

Un courant de la pensee scientifique a maintenu la distinction et la complementarite du surnaturel et de la nature, contre le naturalisme de la Renaissance| XVI-XVII s.

W. J. M. Rankine and the Rise of Thermodynamics

In the history of thermodynamics, two dates stand out as especially important: 1824, when Sadi Carnots brilliant memoir Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu appeared in print; and 1850, when Rudolf Clausius published his similarly titled paper ‘Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Warme’. In this paper Clausius narrowly beat the Scottish physicist William Thomson to the solution of a puzzle which had been highlighted in the latters recent publications: how could Carnots theory, with all its intellectual attractions, be reconciled with the newly discovered principle of the inter-convertibility of heat and work? Clausiuss solution (as is well known) was to replace Carnots axiom of heat conservation, with the axiom now known as the second law of thermodynamics.

Miracle or Mystery? Hypotheses and Predictions in Rankine’s Thermodynamics

This paper sketches an historical episode that presents a major obstacle to the project of using sustained empirical success as a warrant of truth. Its target is the ‘no miracle argument’, used by a family of realist philosophies of science to infer that significant success in deriving some features of the world from a theory provides a very strong reason to believe in that theory. For if the theory in question is true, or approximately so, such success is no mystery. But if the theory is seriously false, success is some sort of coincidence, especially so in the case of novel predictions. Some see the coincidence as huge, almost a miracle, and conclude that when a significant prediction succeeds it is much better to believe the theory behind it is true.1

Temporal Asymmetry in Classical Mechanics

This paper argues against a standard view that all deterministic and conservative classical mechanical systems are time-reversible, by asking how the temporal evolution of a system modulates parametric imprecision (either ontological or epistemic). It notes that well-behaved systems (e.g. inertial motion) can possess a dynamics which is unstable enough to fail at reversing uncertainties—even though exact values are reliably reversed. A limited (but significant) source of irreversibility is thus displayed in classical mechanics, closely analogous the lack of predictability revealed by unstable chaotic systems.

The Natural, the Supernatural, and the Occult in the Scholastic Universe

To understand historical change, one must obviously compare something old with something new. So analysis of scholasticism is a vital part of any sustained discussion of the events which this volume symbolically attaches to the year 1543. The reason for this is not simply the bland fact that medieval philosophy is part of the ‘background’, but something far sharper: a rejection of scholastic attitudes is central to the Scientific Revolution itself.1 One of the things here rejected was medieval matter theory; another (perhaps) was the scholastic view of supernatural causes. The present paper explores the connections between these two doctrines, with a view to clarifying the fortunes of belief about the supernatural in the course of the Scientific Revolution. What does the abandonment of the medieval view of matter by the mechanists of the seventeenth century tell us about changing attitudes to the function of supernatural actions in the operation of the world? This is the question which links my discussion to 1543, but it is not a question that I will be directly answering here.2 Instead, I shall concentrate on the rejected views themselves, one part only of the larger topic.

History and Philosophy of Science

The Program in History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) teaches students to examine the sciences, medicine and technology from a number of perspectives, conceptual, historical and social. The community of scholars includes core faculty and students in History and Philosophy and affiliated members in Classics, Anthropology, English, Political Science, Communication, and other disciplines. Together, they draw upon the multiple methods of their disciplines to study the development, functioning, applications, and social and cultural engagements of the sciences.

No Interaction without Prior Correlation: Comment on Huw Price

The essence of Huw Price’s piece is a recommendation — that his so-called ‘no teleology’ principle be abandoned within microphysics. For if that is done (he argues) many of the problems in interpreting quantum mechanics will evaporate. There are (he adds) no major obstacles to following his recommendation, for the standard reasons for imposing the principle are restricted to macrophysics. Price does not examine these reasons in any detail, and relies mainly on cited literature, plus a couple of illustrative examples — for he clearly regards the macroscopic principle as beyond all reasonable doubt, and quite familiar to his audience. It is this fact that gives weight to his recommendation, for if the principle did not apply to the macroworld, there would be no temptation to apply it to the microworld. It thus becomes vital to ask if the macroscopic principle is trustworthy, and such an enquiry is to be the main burden of this commentary. I aim to show that despite its wide endorsement, the principle is not plausible. Where this leaves Price’s claims about the microworld is unclear to me.

Comments on Thomason

One of the clear targets of Thomason’s paper is the Feyerabendian portrait of Galileo as epistemic opportunist, hastening to substitute rhetoric for reason. Thomason reveals that Feyerabend has fallen into that awkward trap all critics must fear: when we claim to detect blemishes of logic, the defect may well be in our own grasp of the argument. Yet in making this very point, Thomason is already defending one of Feyerabend’s favourite claims — the reasoning processes used by great scientists are remarkably untidy and do not readily compress themselves into neat philosophic formulation.