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Analysis and Wholism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John Elof Boodin
John Elof Boodin*
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles
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Extract

The first aim of science has been analysis. From Leucippus in the fifth century B.C. to Sir Arthur Eddington today, science has tried to reduce nature to simple structural units. For Leucippus the atoms are structurally alike, though they differ in external characteristics, such as size and shape. The aim of physics today is expressed by Sir Arthur Eddington: “The aim of the analysis employed in physics is to resolve the universe into structural units which are precisely alike one another ... so that all variety originates in the structure and not in the elements out of which the structure is built.” To be sure, that is an ideal. In practice we speak of electrons, protons, neutrons. But that does not alter the problem. The question is: Are there such structural units?

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1943 , pp. 213 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1943

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References

1 The Philosophy of Physical Science, 1939, pp. 122, 135.

2 Analysis of Sensations, trans. C. M. Williams, 1897, pp. 169, 170.

3 John Burnet, Greek Philosophy from Thales to Plato, 1924, p. 198.

4 Sir Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science, 1939, p. 142.

5 The Philosophy of Physical Science, 1939, p. 90.

6 The Philosophy of Physical Science, 1939, p. 90.

7 Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, 1938, pp. 307–308.

8 Irving Langmuir, “Science, Common Sense and Decency,” Science, Jan. 1, 1943, p. 3.

9 Ibid. p. 4.

10 Recent discoveries in science have narrowed the gulf between the macroscopic world of ordinary sense experience and the microscopic world of physics. Since our eyes are sensitive only to the part of the spectrum which we call light waves, we cannot by any microscope look directly into the world of atoms and molecules. Light is too coarse-grained to reveal such minute structures. But if we cannot look directly into the microscopic world, we can do so indirectly by means of photographs taken by X-rays which have a wavelength corresponding to atoms. ' Von Laue and the Braggs discovered that measurable X-ray beams are scattered from crystals, due to mutual reinforcement by many thousands of molecules in regular array. Each of these beams gives a piece of vital information about the nature of the ultimate crystal unit (the atom or molecule) which gives rise to it. When all these beams have been measured, the next step is to reconstruct an accurate picture of these atoms of molecules in the crystal unit, that is, to carry out by calculation what the microscope does by means of light.“ (Monthly Science News, Nov., 1942, p. 1). Recently, by using a divergent X-ray beam, ”it has become possible from one or two photographs to obtain all the information that is necessary to determine in general outline at least, the arrangements of atoms in the crystal.“ (Ibid., May, 1942, p. 2)

The recent creation of the “electron microscope” has come even nearer to bridging the gap between the macroscopic world of our ordinary sense experience and the minute structures and processes of nature. The electron microscope“ is capable of enlarging an object up towards hundred thousand diameters. We do not directly deal with electrons. We use the stream of electrons from a high-voltage electric generator. This current is passed through a strong magnetic field at the top of the microscope. It is only in the passage through this field that the radiation is focused which is the source of the visibility. The waves thus emitted are very much shorter than ordinary light and can reveal objects the size of large molecules. The invention is revolutionizing our knowledge of physiological processes, including the activities of enzymes and micro-organisms. We are thus succeeding more and more in bringing the microscopic world within the macroscopic world.

11 A clear discussion of the relation of the new physics to the world of sense experience is found in Prolégomènes a la Théorie des Quanta, Thomas Greenwood, 1942, esp. pp. 59–61.

12 Andras Angyal, Foundations for a Science of Personality, 1941.

13 Wholism has been a guiding idea in the author's thought for a long time. See A Realistic Universe, 1916, pp. 370 ff., also Chapter III; Cosmic Evolution, 1925, Chapter 8; Three Interpretations of the Universe, Chapters 4, 5, 6; God, 1934, Chapter 6; “A Revolution in Metaphysics and Science”, Philosophy of Science, 1938; Man In His World, 1939; The Social Mind, 1939, Chapter I; Cosmic Attributes“, Philosophy of Science, Jan., 1943, pp. 1 ff.; ”The Discovery of Form“, Journal of the History of Ideas, March, 1943.

14 Sir Arthur Eddington, The Physical Universe, 1939, p. 183.

15 J. S. Haldane, The Sciences and Philosophy, p. 49.

16 Embryonic Development and Induction, 1938.

17 Science, vol. 96, p. 253.

18 J. Alexander and C. B. Bridges, Colloid Chemistry, vol. II, pp. 9–58, 1928.

19 We have some evidence of condensation in the laboratory in raising the number of an atom.

20 See the author's Cosmic Evolution, 1925, pp. 142 ff.

21 See the author's Cosmic Evolution, 1925, Chapters 3 and 8; God, 1934, Chapter 4.