Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Experimental Reason, Physics, Nature

For Aristotle, 'physics' is derived from the Greek for 'nature', a kinship which his Teleological system reflects, i. e.  its fundamental principle of change is 'in the nature' of something.  Newton does not disagree with that kinship, contending only, in contrast, that mechanistic Efficient Causality, not Teleological, is what is in the 'nature' of 'physical' entities.  It is Kant, following the insights of Leibniz and Hume, who segregates 'nature' qua perceivable mechanistic changes, from 'nature' qua purposive in itself, i. e. Physics from Biology and Psychology.  So, contemporary Behaviorism, while celebrated for eliminating the 'Ghost' from the 'Machine', is less recognized as just another descendant of Newtonian Mechanics.  Now, one internal flaw in Newtonian Physics is its use of 'frames of reference', not so much because such a device is difficult to explain without Teleology, but because it effects an epoche in nature, i. e. it is opaque with respect to the incessant mechanism that presumably governs all events.  The experimental context is another such caesura in the presumed mechanistic concatenation, or, in other words, neither Newtonian Physics nor Behaviorism can adequately explain the operation of Experimental Reason.

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