The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919Whitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919
Whitehead, Alfred North
Knowledge, Theory of; Nature; Science -- Philosophy
Now I assume as an axiom that science is not a fairy tale. It is not
engaged in decking out unknowable entities with arbitrary and fantastic
properties. What then is it that science is doing, granting that it is
effecting something of importance? My answer is that it is determining
the character of things known, namely the character of apparent nature.
But we may drop the term 'apparent'; for there is but one nature, namely
the nature which is before us in perceptual knowledge. The characters
which science discerns in nature are subtle characters, not obvious at
first sight. They are relations of relations and characters of
characters. But for all their subtlety they are stamped with a certain
simplicity which makes their consideration essential in unravelling the
complex relations between characters of more perceptive insistence.
The fact that the bifurcation of nature into causal and apparent
components does not express what we mean by our knowledge is brought
before us when we realise our thoughts in any discussion of the causes
of our perceptions. For example, the fire is burning and we see a red
coal. This is explained in science by radiant energy from the coal
entering our eyes. But in seeking for such an explanation we are not
asking what are the sort of occurrences which are fitted to cause a mind
to see red. The chain of causation is entirely different. The mind is
cut out altogether. The real question is, When red is found in nature,
what else is found there also? Namely we are asking for an analysis of
the accompaniments in nature of the discovery of red in nature. In a
subsequent lecture I shall expand this line of thought. I simply draw
attention to it here in order to point out that the wave-theory of light
has not been adopted because waves are just the sort of things which
ought to make a mind perceive colours. This is no part of the evidence
which has ever been adduced for the wave-theory, yet on the causal
theory of perception, it is really the only relevant part. In other
words, science is not discussing the causes of knowledge, but the
coherence of knowledge. The understanding which is sought by science is
an understanding of relations within nature.
So far I have discussed the bifurcation of nature in connexion with the
theories of absolute time and of absolute space. My reason has been that
the introduction of the relational theories only weakens the case for
bifurcation, and I wished to discuss this case on its strongest grounds.
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