Science and the modern worldWhitehead, Alfred North
Religion
Science and the modern world
Whitehead, Alfred North
Science
There is another presupposition of thought which must be put beside the
theory of simple location. I mean the two correlative categories of
Substance and quality. There is, however this difference. There were
different theories as to the adequate description of the status of
space. But whatever its status, no one had any doubt but that the
connection with space enjoyed by entities, which are said to be in
space, is that of simple location. We may put this shortly by saying
that it was tacitly assumed that space is the locus of simple locations.
Whatever is in space is _simpliciter_ in some definite portion of space.
But in respect to substance and quality the leading minds of the
seventeenth century were definitely perplexed; though, with their usual
genius, they at once constructed a theory which was adequate for their
immediate purposes.
Of course, substance and quality, as well as simple location, are the
most natural ideas for the human mind. It is the way in which we think
of things, and without these ways of thinking we could not get our ideas
straight for daily use. There is no doubt about this. The only question
is, How concretely are we thinking when we consider nature under these
conceptions? My point will be, that we are presenting ourselves with
simplified editions of immediate matters of fact. When we examine the
primary elements of these simplified editions, we shall find that they
are in truth only to be justified as being elaborate logical
constructions of a high degree of abstraction. Of course, as a point of
individual psychology, we get at the ideas by the rough and ready method
of suppressing what appear to be irrelevant details. But when we attempt
to justify this suppression of irrelevance, we find that, though there
are entities left corresponding to the entities we talk about, yet these
entities are of a high degree of abstraction.
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