Metaphysics, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

Newton’s Constant and The Plague

by Dave Seng

The more I investigate metaphysics the more I become interested in the philosophy of science. As I write this, my university is closed although instruction has moved online.

Nonetheless, I came across this interesting post from MIT mathematician Cal Newport. By way of introduction, it is important to think about how we can apply ourselves to innovative thinking during these difficult times resulting from our own experience with the COVID-19 outbreak.

As it turns out, Isaac Newton did just that. In 1666, due to the Black Plague, Newton found himself self-quarantined in one of his family estates because Cambridge closed down for about eighteen months. (I sure hope our present situation does not last that long!)

Anyway, here’s how James Trefil, author of Reading the Mind of God: In Search of the Principle of Universality describes the situation and how Newton discovered the principle of universal gravity and what has become known as Newton’s constant:

It is hard to say when this notion of separateness of the earth and the heavens began to break down. In his later years, Newton claimed that the incident of the apple took place in 1666, when Cambridge University was closed because of the plague and he was spending eighteen months in isolation on the family estates. His findings were published in final form in 1687, in his monumental three-volume Principia Mathematica. Somewhere between these two dates, then, the separation of earth and sky, which had ruled men’s minds for a millenium and a half, finally disappeared. (Trefil, 9)

The end result of Newton’s formulation (along with developing an advanced form of calculus) is that the older Greek cosmologies were overturned. Newton discovered the principle of universal gravity which laid the foundation for the principle of uniformity now considered a foundational and indispensable postulate of science. We now understand that objects in space do not conform to different scientific laws than the earth, as the Greek cosmologists believed.

And all of this came because Cambridge was closed due to the plague. I wonder if any of our students today, bored at home, will come up with a similar innovation? I certainly hope so.

For some excellent quarantine reading, I highly recommend James Trefil’s book entitled Reading the Mind of God: In Search of the Principle of Universality.

And here is Cal Newport’s post. Enjoy!

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Plato’s Metaphysical Answer to the One and the Many, Part Two

by Dave Seng

Part one of this series can be found here.

Plato attempts to resolve this question of the One and the Many with his theory of Forms. In order to understand how Plato discovers the transcendent world of the Forms, however, it is necessary to understand his categories of Being and Becoming. These categories are closely connected to the problem of the One and the Many. Basically, Plato’s conception of Being corresponds to the One and his category of Becoming corresponds to the Many. For Plato, Being must be one and unchanging. Being cannot involve multiplicity and change because that would include non-Being. That which is, cannot be that which is not. Due to the law of non-contradiction, Being cannot include non-Being. Plato’s category of Becoming (the Many) includes change and involves a mixture of multiplicity, change, and non-Being. If all reality involves the world of change, flux, and transformation – rationality, science, and thoughtful discourse would be impossible. Plato realized there had to be something that supported the basic nature of existence and provided a ground for understanding reality, logic, mathematics, and scientific inquiry. Plato conceived of this essential nature of reality as the transcendent and eternal realm of pure Being (the One). In his dialogue the Timeaeus, Plato describes his conception of Being and Becoming this way:

First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. (447)

It is important to understand Plato’s dual worlds of Being and Becoming in order to fully grasp his metaphysical theory of Forms and to see how he resolved the question of the One and the Many. Plato’s theory of Forms states that every perishable and changing thing in the world of Becoming (the Many) is caused by a transcendent world (the One), which is populated by immutable, eternal Forms. Plato’s conception of transcendent reality is a world that lies beyond both space and time. In other words, according to Plato, every example of chair, human, instance of justice, or act of love has a perfect, unchangeable, transcendent Form that corresponds to it in the world of pure Being. In the Phaedo dialogue, Plato presents this passage which explains how sensible things participate in their transcendent Form:

I cannot help thinking, if there be anything beautiful other than absolute beauty should there be such, that it can be beautiful only in so far as it partakes of absolute beauty – and I should say the same of everything. Do you agree in this notion of the cause?

Yes, he said, I agree.

He proceeded: I know nothing and can understand nothing of any other of those wise causes which are alleged; and if a person says to me that the bloom of colour, or form or any such thing is a source of beauty, I leave all that, which is only confusing to me and simply and singly, and perhaps foolishly, hold and am assured in my own mind that nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained. (242)

Tables not only participate or correspond to their perfect transcendent Form, but so do moral realities. In this way, Plato resolves the problem of the One and the Many. The Form existing in pure Being participates in the physical world of Becoming. Sometimes the Forms are referred to as Ideas because they can only be grasped through the intellect and human reason.

For Plato, the theory of the Forms and their interaction in the world of Becoming is not only true of the physical world, but also in the area of ethics in the attempt to discover what makes actions right or wrong. In the Euthyphro, Plato attempts to explore and describe how piety participates in the transcendent Form or Idea1 of piety:

Soc. Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious and the pious pious?

Euth. I remember.

Soc. Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious. (193)

For Plato, not only do the things of becoming, things of this physical world, participate in an eternal Form, so do moral actions. In this way, Plato would tell us that the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution) actually participates in the eternal and immutable Form of justice, although imperfectly. In the Republic, for example, Plato explains his project of attempting to define the big metaphysical idea of justice as a first step in discovering how it applies to particular individual instances of justice:

First let us complete the old investigation, which we began, as you remember, under the impression that, if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale, there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual. That larger example appeared to be the State, and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could, knowing well that in the good State justice would be found. Let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual. (350)

Metaphysically, Plato is interested in finding the perfect model of justice and then trying to figure out how that model or idea of justice works out at the particular level. In part three, we will discover how Plato further divides reality. Then we will evaluate whether or not Plato was successful in his attempt to resolve the problem of the one and the many.

Works cited

Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 6. Chicago: Encycyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.

1 The Greek word ‘eidos’ can mean both Form and Idea.

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Aristotle on “True Truth”

by Dave Seng

I will get to my explication of Plato soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share one of the most beautiful and inspiring philosophical passages of the Western intellectual tradition. Perhaps I will write about it sometime. Right now, however, I do not want to say anything about it for fear of ruining it. Just enjoy.

It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that that which causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book II, end of chapter 1)

Metaphysics, Philosophy

Plato’s Metaphysical Answer to the One and the Many, Part One

by Dave Seng

Our philosophical reflection on the question of the one and the many brings us to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (427 – 347 B.C). Plato is arguably the most influential philosopher in Western intellectual history and is most known for his theory of transcendent forms (Ideas or essences). Plato held that these transcendent forms are imperfectly mirrored in the sensible world and known through the intellect alone. Ideas, according to Plato, are the highest order of reality while matter is subject to the formative effects of the Ideas. We will get to the rest of Plato’s philosophy a little later. For now, we need to think about the importance of metaphysics in the first place, the question of the one and the many, and how Plato came to the discovery of Form or Idea. This will be the first post of three which will explore Plato’s attempt to resolve the metaphysical question of the one and the many.

Metaphysics is the study of the reality in which we find ourselves and the transcendent reality that makes this world possible. Sometimes philosophers define metaphysics as the study of ultimate reality. Of course, the study of ultimate reality generates many questions. Some of these questions include: How is reality connected to being and existence? What is the essential nature to being or the totality of all that exists? Is reality one or many? If it is many, how does it relate to the one? In fact, it is this question—the question or problem known as “the One and the Many” that puzzled Plato and ultimately caused him to formulate his metaphysical conception of Form. The problem of the One and the Many, is also related to questions of Universal and Particular and Being and Becoming. Plato was certainly perplexed by the question of the One and the Many, the idea of Being and Becoming, and through his investigation of these questions, he became the first systematic metaphysician. He also realized that in some way, metaphysics was basic to all other philosophical concerns.

With this foundation, it is important to understand Plato’s place in Western intellectual history as the foremost systematic philosopher. Although there were others before him, commonly known as the pre-Socratics, who explored interesting metaphysical theories regarding the nature of reality, Plato was the first to describe reality in a methodical and rationally compelling way1. The pre-Socratics, however, asked some fundamental questions about reality that perplexed Plato and influenced his metaphysical outlook. The pre-Socratics, for example, wondered what could be the essential nature of all things and how this essential nature relates to everything else. This question has come down to us as the problem of the One and the Many. The question of the One and the Many is an attempt to intellectually explore the structure of reality. It seeks to find unifying principles in the diversity around us. In other words, the question of the One and the Many is an attempt to make sense out of the world. From Plato’s perspective, the question explores the unities of goodness, justice, or the nature geometry and mathematics, and then tries to explain how these unities, which do not change, exist as diverse particularities in the world. This basic philosophical puzzle has to do with the nature of change and causation. The pre-Socratics, and Plato, were aware that many things change from one thing to another. After all, change is all around us – life, death, seasons, and time itself all are indications of change.

Plato was keenly aware of the problem of the One and the Many. In the Philebus, for example, Socrates says, “The principle which has just turned up, which is a marvel of nature; for that one should be many or many one, are wonderful propositions” (Plato 611). Later, Socrates explains:

A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light; and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we are, handed down the tradition, that whatever things are said to be are composed of one and many, and have the finite and the infinite implanted in them: seeing then that such is the order of the world, we too ought in every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the subject of inquiry; this unity we shall find in everything. (Plato 612)

The question of the one and the many is an attempt to discover the essential nature upon which everything else depends for its existence. The intuition to reduce reality to its essential nature is significant. Scientific theories that unite and make sense out of many other theories and concepts are generally accepted and considered superior models of explanation. It seems basic to human nature to take simplicity and unity as having explanatory power2. There is a rational human impulse to seek and discover a unity or system of thought that provides an answer for everything else related to it. The same is true for those who seek a foundation for reality. Even amidst change, things are interdependent. The question of the One and the Many provides a way to explore and discuss that which everything else depends on for existence. Plato brings this notion to light when he has Socrates discuss the nature of virtue in the Meno dialogue:

How fortunate I am, Meno! When I ask you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them, which are in your keeping. Suppose that I carry on the figure of the swarm, and ask of you, What is the nature of the bee? And you answer that there are many kinds of bees, because there are many and different kinds of them; or are they not rather to be distinguished by some other quality, as for example beauty, size, or shape? (Plato 175)

In this example, Socrates is investigating the nature of virtue by way of natural philosophy. Plato has Socrates explain that just as moral acts have the potential of reflecting the true nature of virtue, there is something in nature, as well, that can reflect the essential character or “Being” of the physical world. The One and the Many has interesting political ramifications too. In the political world, the great American experiment is an attempt to unite the many. For example, the motto on the Seal of the United States says “E Pluribus Unum” – from the many, one – in an attempt to describe the American ethos of bringing unity out of the diversity of the many. Not only politically, however, but in the physical world, the tension of the One and the Many holds true as well. In part two, we will discover how Plato attempts to resolve this question and why it is important for Western intellectual history and the implications for us today.

Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 6. Chicago: Encycyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.

1 On occasion, Plato references the pre-Socratic thinker Heraclitus. Plato was certainly aware of and in discussion with the ideas that came before him and was also influenced by Parmenides.

2 This is why many metaphysicians use Occam’s razor to decide among competing theories of reality.