Facts and the Scientific World Picture
103
is unknown to us, we have good reason to suppose that the structure of our
percepts repeats the structure of the external events which cause them.
Russell’s conclusion is that the mind-independent universe is not inaccessible
to us after all—but what we are able to know of it is limited to its structure. We
are able to achieve perfect knowledge of the structure of the universe we inhabit,
but the substance of objects will forever remain hidden from us. This way of
thinking harmonizes perfectly with the practice in science, whose objective is
to describe accurately the structure of observed phenomena, preferably in a
mathematical form.
Note also that it is not essential that our sense impressions or perceptual
experiences resemble the external events which cause them. The physical forces
that act on our senses may be quite unlike anything that we perceive: Our
mental pictures of events are consistent among themselves, and fully consistent
with the feedback we get when we interact with objects. Thus, the world
presented to our senses preserves the structure of its causal antecedents, but
tells us nothing about the underlying substance.
If scientific explanation is based exclusively on the structure of phenomena,
and nothing is knowable of reality except its structure, then maybe the idea that
there is anything more than structure is superfluous. A number of scientists
and philosophers have proposed as a possibility that structure is all there is—
because that’s all that can be known. Intuition tells us that this is unlikely,
because structure refers to the arrangement or organization of concrete objects.
But it has been suggested also that intuition cannot always be relied on, and
there are things in the universe that outstrip the resources of intuition.
The ideal of achieving an understanding of phenomena by uncovering their
structural properties is not new. Plato referred to this enterprise as saving the
appearances. In the late Middle Ages, astronomers such as Copernicus who
proposed a heliocentric model of the universe were very careful not to offer
their theory as fact, but merely a way of saving the appearances, that is, describing
the structure of the observed phenomena. The unfortunate Giordano Bruno
asserted as a fact that the sun is at the center of the universe and the planets
revolve about it. For this, he was burned at the stake. Bruno did not stop there,
but suggested that all the stars are myriad faraway suns, and there might be
planets circling them, some perhaps inhabited by ensouled beings.
Many scientists today identify the mission of modern physics as that of saving the appearances. The arguments of structuralism have decisively persuaded
many that what is knowable about reality are the relations between entities and
nothing more. Attempts to penetrate deeper and search for essences and ultimate qualities are speculation, and are in the province not of science but of
metaphysics.
103
is unknown to us, we have good reason to suppose that the structure of our
percepts repeats the structure of the external events which cause them.
Russell’s conclusion is that the mind-independent universe is not inaccessible
to us after all—but what we are able to know of it is limited to its structure. We
are able to achieve perfect knowledge of the structure of the universe we inhabit,
but the substance of objects will forever remain hidden from us. This way of
thinking harmonizes perfectly with the practice in science, whose objective is
to describe accurately the structure of observed phenomena, preferably in a
mathematical form.
Note also that it is not essential that our sense impressions or perceptual
experiences resemble the external events which cause them. The physical forces
that act on our senses may be quite unlike anything that we perceive: Our
mental pictures of events are consistent among themselves, and fully consistent
with the feedback we get when we interact with objects. Thus, the world
presented to our senses preserves the structure of its causal antecedents, but
tells us nothing about the underlying substance.
If scientific explanation is based exclusively on the structure of phenomena,
and nothing is knowable of reality except its structure, then maybe the idea that
there is anything more than structure is superfluous. A number of scientists
and philosophers have proposed as a possibility that structure is all there is—
because that’s all that can be known. Intuition tells us that this is unlikely,
because structure refers to the arrangement or organization of concrete objects.
But it has been suggested also that intuition cannot always be relied on, and
there are things in the universe that outstrip the resources of intuition.
The ideal of achieving an understanding of phenomena by uncovering their
structural properties is not new. Plato referred to this enterprise as saving the
appearances. In the late Middle Ages, astronomers such as Copernicus who
proposed a heliocentric model of the universe were very careful not to offer
their theory as fact, but merely a way of saving the appearances, that is, describing
the structure of the observed phenomena. The unfortunate Giordano Bruno
asserted as a fact that the sun is at the center of the universe and the planets
revolve about it. For this, he was burned at the stake. Bruno did not stop there,
but suggested that all the stars are myriad faraway suns, and there might be
planets circling them, some perhaps inhabited by ensouled beings.
Many scientists today identify the mission of modern physics as that of saving the appearances. The arguments of structuralism have decisively persuaded
many that what is knowable about reality are the relations between entities and
nothing more. Attempts to penetrate deeper and search for essences and ultimate qualities are speculation, and are in the province not of science but of
metaphysics.