Table Of ContentTHE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University
ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SAHOTRA SARKAR, Boston University
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of
the City University ofN ew York
VOLUME 146
THE SCIENTIFIC
ENTERPRISE
The Bar-Hillel Colloquium: Studies in
History, Philosophy, and Sociology ofS cience
Volume 4
Edited by
EDNA ULLMANN-MARGALIT
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Sclentlflc enterprise I edlted by Edna Ullmann-Margallt.
p. CI. -- (The Bar-Hl11el colloqulum ; v. 4) (Boston studles
In the phl1osophy of science ; v- 146)
ISBN 978-94-010-5190-3 ISBN 978-94-011-2688-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-2688-5
1. Sclence--Hlstory--Congresses. 2. Sclence--Phl1osophy
-Congresses. 3. Sclence--Soclal aspects--Congresses. 1. Ul1lann
-Margallt. Edna. II. Serles. III. Serles; Boston studles in the
phl1osophy of sclence ; v- 146.
a124.6.S394 1992
509--dc20 92-31007
ISBN 978-94-010-5190-3
Prepared in cooperation with Mrs. Esther Shashar, executive editor.
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
AII Rights Reserved
© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1992
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 18t edition 1992
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
THE BAR-HILLEL COLLOQUIUM: STUDIES IN
HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE
The Governing Board The Advisory Committee
Yehuda Elkana Aryeh Dworetzky
Michael Heyd Jacob Eckstein
Asa Kasher Yaron Ezrahi
Michael Feldman
Coordinator Seymour Fox
Edna Ullmann-Margalit Saul Friedlander
Amos Funkenstein
Advisory Editorial Board Max Jammer
Robert S. Cohen Shneior Lifson
Boston University Yuval Ne'eman
Shlomo Pines
Yehuda Elkana Shmuel Sambursky
Tel Aviv University and David Samuel
The Van Leer Jerusalem Ben-Ami Scharfstein
Institute Ozer Schild
Mark Steiner
Gerald Holton Ezra Talmor
Harvard University Zvi Yavetz
The Israel Colloquium for the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science
was established in the academic year 1981-82. It offers, annually, a series of
public lectures, alternately in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is sponsored and
directed jointly by three bodies: The Center for the History and Philosophy
of Science, Technology, and Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas of Tel Aviv
University; and The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. The advisory committee
of the Israel Colloquium represents all the institutions of higher learning in
Israel. In 1988 the Colloquium was renamed "The Bar-Hillel Colloquium."
Contents
Preface lX
ISAAC KRAMNICK, Cornell University
Eighteenth-Century Science and Radical Social Theory:
The Case of Joseph Priestley's Scientific Liberalism
JOSEPH MALI, Tel Aviv University
Science, Politics, and the New Science of Politics:
A Comment 33
BRIAN VICKERS, Center for Renaissance Studies, Zurich
Critical Reactions to the Occult Sciences During the
Renaissance 43
RIVKA FELDHAY, Tel Aviv University
Critical Reactions to the Occult: A Comment 93
MARTIN WARNKE, University of Hamburg
Works ofthe Imagination 10 1
MOSHE BARASCH, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Works of the Imagination: A Comment 117
J. J. C. SMART, The Australian National University
Wittgenstein, Following a Rule, and Scientific Psychology 123
A VISHAI MARGALIT, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
How to Outsmart the Rules: A Comment 139
JEAN-MARC LEVY-LEBLOND, University of Nice
Why Does Physics Need Mathematics? 145
ITAMAR PITOWSKY, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Why Does Physics Need Mathematics? A Comment 163
FELICIA ACKERMAN, Brown University
Analysis and Its Paradoxes 169
viii
CHARLES TAYLOR, McGill University
Explanation and Practical Reason 179
SYMPOSIUM: "THE OTHER NEWTON" - THE THEOLOGICAL AND
ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS 203
B. J. T. DOBBS, Northwestern University
Gravity and Alchemy 205
RICHARD S. WESTFALL, Indiana University
Isaac Newton: Theologian 223
RICHARD H. POPKIN, Washington University
Newton and the Origins of Fundamentalism 241
SYMPOSIUM: NIELS BOHR CENTENNIAL 261
SHMUEL SAMBURSKY, The Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities
Man as Spectator and Actor in the Drama of Existence 263
DAVID Z. ALBERT, Columbia University
Bohr's Response to Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen 269
MARA BELLER, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Genesis of Bohr's Complementarity Principle and the
Bohr-Heisenberg Dialogue 273
Preface
The volume before us is the fourth in the series of proceedings of what used to
be the Israel Colloquium for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of
Science. This Colloquium has in the meantime been renamed. It now bears
the name of Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (1915-1975). Bar-Hillel was an eminent
philosopher of science, language, and cognition, as well as a fearless fighter
for enlightenment and a passionate teacher who had a durable influence on
Israeli philosophical life.
The essays collected in this volume have of course this much in common,
that they are all in, of, and pertaining to science. They also share the property
of having all been delivered before live, and often lively, audiences in
Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv, in the years 1984-1986. As is customary in the
volumes of this series, the essays and commentaries presented here are
intended to strike a rather special balance between the disciplines to which
the Colloquium is dedicated. The historical and sociological vantage point is
addressed in Kramnick's and Mali's treatment of Priestley, in Vickers' and
Feldhay's studies of the Renaissance occult, and in Warnke's and Barasch's
work on the imagination. From a philosophical angle several concepts, all
material to the methodology of science, are taken up: rule following, by
Smart and Margalit; analysis, by Ackerman; explanation, by Taylor; and the
role of mathematics in physics, by Levy-Leblond and Pitowsky. In addition,
the volume contains the proceedings of two symposia dedicated to two
towering scientific figures: one celebrates Bohr's centennial, and the other
examines "the other Newton."
I would like to note here, with sadness, the deaths of Shmuel Sambursky
(1900-1990), and Shlomo Pines (1908-1990), who were both among the
founding members of the Israel Colloquium. Both brought together in a
splendid union the two worlds of science and humanities, Sambursky in his
work on the science of Antiquity, and Pines in his contribution to Medieval
scholarship as well as that of late Antiquity. With their deaths the world of
learning lost two great scholars.
Edna Ullmann-Margalit
ix
Eighteenth-Century Science and Radical Social
Theory: The Case of Joseph Priestley's
Scientific Liberalism
ISAAC KRAMNICK
In 1794 Joseph Priestley fled England and the Church-and-King sentiment
that had set ablaze his Birmingham house and laboratory in 1791. His flight
to America was noted by the United Irishmen with a public letter. This most
radical group in the entire camp of English sympathizers with the French
Revolution not only lamented English repression but offered a marvelous
hymn to the tripartite linkage of America, useful science, and radical change.
The emigration of Dr. Priestley will form a striking historical fact, by
which alone future ages will learn to estimate truly the temper of the
present times .... But be cheerful, dear Sir, you are going to a happier
world, the world of Washington and Franklin. In idea we accompany
you .... We also look to the new age when man shall become more
precious than fine gold, and when his ambition shall be to subdue the
elements, not to subjugate his fellow creatures, to make fire, water,
earth, and air obey his bidding, but to leave the pure ethereal mind, as
the sole thing in nature free and invincible .... The attention of a whole
scientific people [here] is bent to multiplying the means and instruments
of destruction ... but you are going to a country where science is turned
to better use (Rutt 1831, 2:218).
The relationship between science and progressive politics was by no means
one-way. Just as science would ameliorate the human condition, so a
E. Ullmann-Margalit (ed.) The Scientific Enterprise, 1-31.
© 1992 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
2 THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE
progressive politics would encourage scientific advances. In the very last
scientific paper he wrote before his self-imposed exile, Priestley made a
digression into politics, noting ihe extent to which politics, ideology, and
science were intertwined, and firmly identified himself and other radicals as
the true virtuosi of science. In his Experiments on the Generation of Air
From Water (1793) he notes
Since ... the friends of philosophy in this century must separate on the
ground of religion and politics ... may the separation have no farther
consequences than that producing a generous emulation who shall
most advance the cause of science; the friends of Church and King, as
they affect exclusively to call themselves, or the friends of liberty,
among whom, at all times, and in all circumstances, I shall be proud to
rank myself. We are, it is true, but a small minority, but not deficient, I
trust, in ability, activity, and energy, qualities which will always make
men respected, though oppressed (quoted in Gibbs 1967,243; emphases
are Priestley's).
No surprise, then, that in his adopted America Priestley's champion would be
the Founding Father who similarly linked progress to the fortunes of science.
Jefferson wrote to Priestley on 21 March, 1801:
Our countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art and
industry had thrown them; science and honesty are replaced on their
high ground, and you my dear Sir, as their great apostle, are on its
pinnacle. It is with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moments of
my public action, I can hail you with welcome to our land, tender to
you the homage of its respect and esteem, cover you under the
protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good like
you. Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind for the
continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous (quoted in Ford
1905,9:216).1
Joseph Priestley was the preeminent scientist in the Anglo-American world
in the era of the American and French revolutions. It is through his career
and writings that the links in late eighteenth-century Britain between science,
dissenting theology, and political radicalism can be investigated. This linkage
will be described in both sociological and conceptual terms. The sociological
dimension emphasizes Priestley's personal role as the central figure in
political, educational, and religious radicalism in his native Britain. The
conceptual dimension involves a discusssion of Priestley's Enlightenment
vision of science as the redemptive agent of emancipation and amelioration,
