Paramount in the Philosophical Field and Crisis in Science - Essay Example

Justification and Crisis of Modern Science Insert Justification and Crisis of Modern Science John Locke was a prominent influence in western culture through his philosophical woks and theoretical thinking. However, it was hard to identify his true nature because no one could tell if he was a Deist, a Christian or Unitarian. Until the fundamental French Enlightenment, American Unitarianism and Deism were more or less the same and both fit in the outer edges of Anglican Protestantism. Locke ignored the concept of trinity and natural sin but restrained to numerous Christian beliefs. He clearly understood the Deists and was greatly influenced by the brilliant Unitarians in social concepts. Rene Descartes on the other hand was known to be the vicar of modern science. He initiated a new clear means of thinking about science and philosophy through ignoring all notions centered on supposition or emotional conviction and concurring with the ideas proved by direct observation (Dunn, 1999). The ultimate aim of this paper is to examine how John Locke attempted to justify modern science in terms of bringing in his own ideas and views as a way to bridge the gap between Descarte’s res cogitans and res extensa. It also examines the way he was opposed by several other scholars Locke’s Justification of Modern Science John Locke was one of the most influential especially in An Essay about Human Understanding (1690), fundamentally rejected the Cartesian theory of the continuation of innate notions – like that of God, or time without end – and upholded that the infant during birth has no any form of knowledge and he compared it to a blank page, and in severe terms, it does not stay alive yet. It is important to note that when he selects the subject of his title, Locke never used the term “mind” which could propose a notion of something really stays alive like an object or a permanent structure (Dunn, 1999). In opposition to that, he chose the term “understanding” which proposes the idea of a continous process. What he meant here is that a child is never born with any knowledge and he only gets to understand things once hegrows up. This is because Locke believed that knowledge is mainly based on learning from “expereince”. According to him, a newly born baby has no form of expereince therefore has no type of knowledge. Although Locke understood that expereince depicts two forms – one centered on “reflection” or reasoning and the other on “sensation”, he openly implied that all automated expereinces are secondary derived from those obtained through the senses (Dunn, 1999). This happens even if the mind may generate completely new forms of automated expereince. This means that reflection is not only the meager copy of sensation, although its natural fabricis developed from it. It is clear from the theory of Human Understanding that Locke supported Modern science which suggests similar notions about human beings. Modern science assumes a child to be of little knowledge who does what he does not understand. For example, a baby can relieve himself and still eat the same waste because he doe not understand what he is doing. At the same time, a child can dare touch fire or hot substance and until it burns him is when he realizes that that is dangerous. Therefore, modern science and Jonk Locke’s theory of Human Understanding are more less the same because they contain same notions about human being. Although Locke was sometimes depicted as a christian due to his attendance and knowledge about church, he evidently attempted to justify modern science. Moreover, his other influential theory is that of availability of simple and complicated ideas. According to him, both of them belong to fields of expereince (Dunn, 1999). While simple notions are basically data that is received by the mind meaning that it is non-reducible to more basic ones. Complicated notions on the other hand are made up of a combination of basic ones. This theory was very instrumental during the aristotle period because it gave birth to some kind of “mental chemistry” through which the elementary constituent of expereince were to be acquired through de-composition process of complicated notions. The Cartesian principle of the division between res extensa and res cogitans illustrated a clear-slash between the functions of the uncomprehensive mind soul, and tha of the comprehended body which Rene Sescartes observed much like Aristotle as a stylish biological machine. Descartes was strongly backed up by the revolutionary studies of Harvey on the operations of the heart and the vascular system (Dunn, 1999). It was from this studies that future researches were carried out to determine how the body functions and at later stages led to the establishment of modern biological science. In fact, to tackle the res extensa meant preventing the very hazardous business of studying the soul (res cogitans) which had been left to the concentration of the clerical authorities as a metaphysical anxiety. From this observation, it is clear that Locke actually tried to join the gap that existed between the res cogitans and res extensa because these two talk about how the mind and soul combine to issue out complicated ideas that are a combination of several basic ideas. There is much relationship between the two works by Locke and by Descartes in the sense that both of them talk about ideas and how they are established. Both of them also talk about the mind and its contribution to generation of ideas. Besides, most of the ideas and expereince according to Locke occurred due to the contribution of the senses (Dunn, 1999). The sense in this case of course is the brain which is directly linked to the heart through the blood vessels. Therefore, when Descartes talks about mind and soul, it actually reflects the notion of expereince through sensetion brought up by John Locke. Therefore, it is evident enough that Locke succeeded in filling the gap between res cogitans and res extensa. However, the process was never easy for him because he received massive challenges as observed below. Difficulty in Justification of Modern Science by Locke It was never an easy journey for Locke to justify modern science and fill the gap between res cogitans and res extensa because there was much criticism from other philosophers and other people who thought he could never make it. Most of the criticism he received were about his real stand in the field of study because they confused his nature (Dunn, 1999). They never understood who he really was in the sense that he was identified as a Christian, a Deist, Socinian and Unitarian. For example, Nicholas Wolterstorff believed that Locke was a pro-Enlightenment due to his contribution and support of the religious issues but he never recognized him as a philosopher especially in Locke’s attempt to justify modern science. Another major criticism was from David Hume who believed that Locke had done nothing to bridge the gap between res cogitans and res extensa. Hume’s Critique Hume came up with theory of Observation on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expereince (1749) and through it he attempted to outshine Locke by stating that Locke had done nothing to prove his points about modern science. Hume confirmed the role of experimental expereince centered on sensation for the creation of mind –which he thought is this process and could never be argued as a kind of a structure, an object or an inner “something”. According to Locke human expereince dependend on sensational expereince based on an individual inner senses (Dunn, 1999). Through the argument by Hume, it is clear that he tried to pull down Locke’s argument and to prove that indeed it was wrong to argue in terms of “inner something”. He developed what he considered as an accurate in the sense that simple ideas (sensations) have a propensity of linking with each other when they are of same type, close together or near in time. therefore, the notion of inner senses was never in his mind meaning that Locke was wrong in developing such an idea. However, Hume failed in his attempt to pull down John Locke because Locke’s notion was heavily supported by other phylosophies from other authors. Most of them developed their theories based on the responsibility of expereince, the working of the related process between sensations and ideas and the absence of innate ideas (Dunn, 1999). Some of the authors who supported Locke’s theoritical writing in justification of Modern science include James Mill (1773-1836), David Hartely (1705-1757), and John S. Mill (1806-1873). David Hume also had a number of supporters among them being George Bekeley (1685- 1753). The issue became so paramount in the philosophical field and it lead to several conflicts and misunderstandings among the phylosophical authors thus leading to a broadened crisis in science. However, eventually Hume’s notion was ignored and rejected by fellow phylosophers who left him in an emprical disbelief. The other including John Locke went on to publish theoritical concepts concerning modern sciense that led to the birth of psychology as an experimental subject. Nevertheless, of late, there influence on psychology has undergone massive revision due to psychological revolution (Dunn, 1999). References Dunn, J. (1999). The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521271398 Read More