Thursday, June 6, 2019

Microscope and Atomism

Kant's characterization of one of his Epistemological innovations as a 'Copernican Revolution' implicitly signifies a recognition of the influence of the invention of the modern telescope.  He might also have characterized another of his innovations as a 'Galilean inversion'--his thesis that a manifold of data is synthesized in an apparently simple perception could be drawn from the revelation of a heterogeneity constituting an apparently simple homogeneity, thanks to the invention of the modern microscope.  Another possible influence of that invention is reflected in his Second Antinomy--the possibility of the existence of no smallest particle, or, equivalently, the possibility that the universe is not only infinitely large, but infinitely small, as well.  Such a possibility is rarely considered in Philosophical systems, e. g. Spinoza does not seem to consider that Nature is infinite in that direction, and, hence, that the Human world obtains somewhere in between, with no distinguishing characteristic other than that of happening to be the object of its inhabitants.  One Philosophical principle that has remained indifferent to the implications of microscopic discovery is Logical Atomism, which persists in not recognizing that its Physical basis has become obsolete, thereby exposing the groundlessness of the corresponding methodology.  Likewise, any presumption of finitude in Analytic Philosophy, i. e. that ultimate Atoms can be isolated, is arbitrary.

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