[lit-ideas] Re: The principle of the uniformity of nature
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 07:14:22 -0500
In a message dated 2/20/2015 9:16:59 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Greek eskhatos "last, furthest, uttermost, extreme, most remote" in time,
space, degree, (from PIE *eghs-ko-, suffixed form of *eghs "out") ... Also,
is an "a priori conception" in any way similar to an Immaculate
Conception? I can make something up if you don't know.
Well, I do think that the Immaculate Conception, as Geary (and many Popes,
too) called it, HAS to do with 'eschatology', which as Geary rightly points
out, is merely an ornamentation of the word
"out"
to mean,
"last, further, uttermost, extreme, most remote".
But Grice distinguishes between what he calls THEOLOGICAL eschatology
(where the Immaculate Conception pertains) and PHILOSOPHICAL eschatology. He
thought he was being witty.
He says that Metaphysics broadly conceived has little to do, as Palma
mentions, with 'beyond physics' -- Aristotle's ta meta ta physica) -- and
rather
can be divided into TWO sub-disciplines:
ONTOLOGY
and
PHILOSOPHICAL ESCHATOLOGY.
I was thinking that the principle of the uniformity of nature (since McEvoy
and O. K. were discussing 'laws of nature') was an apt topic to introduce
in that it can be formulated propositionally. To wit:
i. Nature is uniform.
Kant and Hume (or "Hume and Kant", as Geary prefers -- "drop your names
chronologically") agreed that it's metaphysical in nature. Since it's not
really an ontological remark, I thought it was 'eschatological'. For Grice,
'eschatological' pertains to categories, and is more general than ontology.
The negation of (i), Grice notes, is _also_ eschatological
~i. Nature is not uniform.
Lord Russell (known to friends as "Bertie" and unfairly portrayed as pretty
nasty in "Tom and Viv", the life of T. S. Eliot and his aristocratic wife)
visited the United States once, and thought that
i.
as indeed refuted into
ii.
during Thanksgiving.
He was moved by the fact that the President of the United States would
pardon the life of a turkey. "Something that would rarely happen in Wales"
(Lord Russell was born in Wales).
In Wales, a turkey observes that every day when the farmer's wife came down
the path at dawn, it got its breakfast shortly after.
The turkey in Wales is a good inductivist -- and abides by the principle
of the uniformity of nature ("the sun raises, the sun sets", "I get my
breakfast shortly after the farmer's wife comes down the path at dawn").
So every day this happened, the turkey became a little MORE certain (the
probability increased) that the statement
"When the farmer's wife comes down the path at dawn, then I will get my
breakfast"
is true.
"On one Christmas Eve, I recall", recalls Bertie, "the farmer's wife came
down the path with a large axe and chopped off the turkey's head."
"That made a big impression on me, but also refuted the principle of the
uniformity of nature".
"The turkey's reasoning, based on the principle of the uniformity of nature
[which the turkey thought was, to echo Geary, an a priori conception --
something like the immaculate conception, only different] was faulty."
"I came to conclude," Russell writes, that "in reality it did not matter
how many repeated observations the turkeymade of the allegedly uniform
natural act of the farmer's wife feeding him breakfast, the statmement ""When
the farmer's wife comes down the path at dawn, then I will get my breakfast."
never became any more true."
"And the farmer and his wife lived happily ever after," Russell ironically
concludes.
Cheers,
Speranza
KEYWORD: Philosophical Eschatology
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