PHI 162: “The Problem of Scientific Knowledge through Demonstration” (according to Aristotle)

Jolene Patricia Brown

Dr. M.V. Wedin

PHI 162: Aristotle

27 April 2010

The Problem of Scientific Knowledge through Demonstration

Aristotle claims that scientific knowledge can only arise in the situation that one can demonstrate what they know by presenting the knowledge in a coherent form with specific rules. In this way, his definition of scientific knowledge can be compared to a syllogism: it takes two true premises, argued together, to be able to claim new true information in the conclusion of the argument in the form of the syllogism. Like a syllogism, scientific knowledge consists of true claims that one must understand, and have seen demonstrated, taken together in an argument to be a conclusion that consists of scientific knowledge. He writes:

…it is necessary for demonstrative understanding in particular to depend on things which are true and primitive and immediate and more familiar than and prior to and explanatory of the conclusion… (71b.20)

In the above quote he states four dependencies that must be necessary for understanding of scientific knowledge to occur: a premise must be true, primitive and immediate, more familiar and prior and explanatory. These dependences are important because without them a conclusion would suffer from inconsistency, false claims, and a lack of demonstration that would be necessary for knowledge to be obtained.

Each of the four dependencies represents some form of demonstration in and of itself. The truth dependency, the first one on his list, is that which claims that the premises must be true in order for the conclusion to be true: truth in the premises demonstrates the relationship of truth in the premises to the truth contained in the conclusion, rendering the information in the conclusions as true. The second dependency, primitive and intermediate, refers to the relation of the premises to the conclusion for the information in the premises must precede the information in the conclusion or otherwise entail the conclusion. It would not be possible for a premise that that contains information that is, for instance, chronologically later than the information contained in the conclusion. This dependency demonstrates the relationship of the information in the premises to the information contained in the conclusion and the importance of entailment and logical following as going from premise to conclusion in the course of the argument. The third dependency is more familiar and prior which refers to the relationship between the information and the individual who knows it. One must be familiar with the information contained in the premises in order to use it to make a claim about that information in a new way, such as in a conclusion. “Being prior and more familiar” is that which is “nearer to perception”—something that can been demonstrated to the individual in such a way as to produce knowledge, which can in turn be used as premises to form even more knowledge in the conclusion (72a.1-5). The last dependency is that the premises must be explanatory, meaning that the information contained in the premises must explain the information contained within the conclusion, thereby demonstrating the connection between the relevance of the information in the argument.

The problem with Aristotle’s claim of demonstration as a means of obtaining scientific knowledge is that there is a regress of circularity that occurs in the rigorousness of providing demonstration for all knowledge beginning with the premises that precede the conclusion and extending back to the “first premises.” If Aristotle is correct, there will be no “first claims” that would be found underlying all other claims leading to a conclusion: if there were it would create a problem because either those first claims would not meet the criteria of the dependencies, or one would have to continue their demonstration in a circular argument that would quickly become non-demonstrable. Aristotle makes an argument against the circularity of knowledge by stating that “if demonstration must depend on what is prior and more familiar…it is impossible for the same things at the same time to be prior and posterior to the same things” (72b.25-30). We must remember that being “prior and more familiar” demonstrates the relationship of the information to the individual, and in this way Aristotle is correct: for an argument to be circular, then the individual would both have to know and not know the premises simultaneously in order for the argument to complete itself in a reciprocal fashion. Since the ability to simultaneously know and not know is impossible, the idea that all arguments are circular is not an option.

Instead of pressing for more justification of demonstration as the only means of scientific knowledge, Aristotle then explores the idea that the immediate, or that the dependency between the premises and the conclusion, is not necessarily demonstrable and that instead knowledge at a certain point can be obtained through familiarity by definition (72b.20-25). Aristotle earlier defines “definition” as a “posit…but not a supposition” (72a.20), meaning that unlike a supposition that “assumes either of the parts of a contradiction”—like an assumption—a definition gives information that one must assume but that does not nullify either part of a contradiction. Instead, a definition outlines the meaning of a premise in such a way that it maintains truth, and allows the formation of new information in the conclusion thereby creating new premises for argument: the first “first claims” needed to source scientific knowledge. In claiming that it is possible for some premises, namely those that are immediate, to originate from definitions, Aristotle almost convinces the reader of the definition as a solution to the problem of infinite regress, but even that falls short. The problem with the idea of definition is thus stated:

Since one should both be convinced of and know the object by having a deduction of the sort we call a demonstration, and since this is the case when these things on which the deduction depends are the case, it is necessary not only to be already aware of the primitives…but actually be better aware of them. (72a.25)

By this explanation it is not sufficient that a definition might allow a premise to exist as a primitive, since it is necessary for an individual to be already aware of the premises, but “better aware” of them than the conclusion itself. Since it would be hard to take the definition of a very abstract idea and construct an argument such that the conclusion would not only include information from both definitions, but also create a new idea that is concrete seems impossible. A definition would need to be so well-known by the individual that it would become another premise that would need another demonstration in order to prove all the points of the definition in such a way as to create a conclusion, leading back to the original circular pattern of demonstration needed for scientific knowledge.

Unhappy with the options he presents about the source of knowledge Aristotle instead rejects all accounts, and claims there must be another way for one to achieve knowledge. His options as they stand are to concede to circular reasoning, resort skepticism, or have an infinite explanation that no one would ever be able to conceive. None of these options present a case for scientific knowledge as he would like to accept—in demonstration—so instead of claiming one over the others, he rejects all of them as false, and by doing so implies the option of something unknown even to him: “…hence, since there are few such things in demonstrations, it is evident that it is both empty and impossible to say that demonstration is reciprocal and that because of this there can be demonstration of everything” (73a.15-20). By rejecting all those things he denies are the sources of truth he does not explicitly state what it is that is the source of truth, and instead makes an oblique claim that there is something else that is unknown at this point that is the source. Scientific knowledge, therefore, can be had, but we reach a point in demonstrating the truth of it that knowledge itself remains source less.

ENL 110B: "Why Read Literature: Literature, Science and the Problem of Subjectivity"

Jolene Brown

Dr. T. Morton

ENL 110B

30 July 2009

Why Read Literature:

Literature, Science and the Problem of Subjectivity

Those who cannot empirically measure the importance or value of literature have often questioned the value of it beyond basic storytelling or perhaps historical motivations or moral growth. It does seem counter-intuitive for a person to put a numerical value on the importance of literature in society, after all, the subjectivity that is implied by the idea of enjoyment is interpreted as a strict form of subjectivity, not reconciled to a single value that is the same to each person equally. Examples of this sort of subjectivity are found everyday in conversations about literature: people who will argue that one book is better than another for various reasons or an author is better than another because emphasis of certain stylistic qualities that change importance from person to person. It does seem absurd that the author would intend or even expect his text to have a "universal" interpretation for all readers. With the myriad of personalities in the world and the enormous potential for readership, the possibility of even two people identifying, interpreting and mentally constructing the text in an identical fashion is a statistical fantasy. It is, of course, up for argument that one can even distinguish intent of the author as an identifiable construct, or even that the ideas of the audience can be articulated in such a way to make them available for side by side comparison. It must be asked then, is there a certain particular, universal reason to read literature?

Superficially it would seem that science does not suffer the ambiguity of subjectivity as literature does. Instead, science maintains an attitude of ‘objectivity,’ expecting the same from all other studies. Biology, physics, and chemistry have descended upon the other disciplines as a merciless predator tearing away at the flesh of their victims with methodical scientific evidence, undermining all other superiority with the intended purpose of explaining and defining the world “objectively.” What the humanities, especially, have left are the few remnants of those things not yet explainable by science. Literature, which is at best an abstraction of reality, cannot compare to science with its powers of explanation, but literature has a strength that the sciences do not: literature can rule the realm of the imaginary because it is not limited by the numbers, empirical measurements and scientific method that bars science from exploring those things inside the realm of the mind. The measurements that science demands are exactly those things that literature can operate either with or without, so the flexibility of literature is exemplified in its flexibility of not demanding an empirical construct.

Of course it seems that literature has a certain inherent subjectivity in the way it is constructed that is eliminated in science by the use of methods and standards of measurements. For example, literature is often told from the perspective of one or two characters, which may or may not be identifiable with the audience for which the piece is written. This identification (or lack of) on the part of the audience seems to justify subjective interpretation: if each reader, ideal or otherwise, can cultivate their own an identity that either counters or cooperates with the identity of the character of the literature then is it hard to believe that the literature is creating an individual (subjective) experience for each member of its audience? Surely the author does not create his text with the intent that each reader should feel exactly the same way about the characters or the events. However, science may be expecting too much in their objectivity and find itself victim to the same kinds of subjective problems. Before any scientist can set out to measure his work he, must first establish a basis of measurement be it the meter, the ounce, the gram, another construct of comparison. Once he establishes a method for measurement accurate enough for his purpose, he must convince others of the accuracy and relevance of his measurement. This process, though mostly unconsidered by the scientific community, might be a cause for concern only because the implication may be that measurement itself is based on completely arbitrary objects or lengths.

It must be wondered how this gap between science and literature might be reconciled or if it can be at all. The Formalists took a step to create a “science of literature that would be both independent and factual” (Eichenbaum 1062). The Formalists subscribed to the idea that science maintained a conviction for truth, and would not compromise itself to falling short of finding the truth: “science lives not by settling on truth, but by overcoming error” (1062). At first glance it seems that the Formalists may have found the olive branch to science; by adopting its structure and formulating an approach that understood all literature through the same basic “method” there might finally be some way of organizing the value of literature based on a set standard of criteria. Critics would be able to ask the same questions of each piece and attempt to find the answers given, and there might be a direct connection between literature and science.

Can Formalism account for the broad spectrum of forms that are interwoven into so many literatures? Mikhail Bakhtin argues for the artistic formulation of the novel as both an aesthetic form and as a versatile use of language that exceeds poetry in its scope. The novel incorporates so many stylistic functions that it cannot be captured by only one set standard or subscribe to the same expectations of poetry.

The novel as a whole is a phenomenon multiform in style and variform in speech and voice. In it the investigator is confronted with several heterogeneous stylistic unities, often located on different linguistic levels and subject to different stylistic controls...These heterogeneous stylistic unities, upon entering the novel, combine to form a structured artistic system, and are subordinated to the higher stylistic unity of the work as a whole, a unity that cannot be identified with any single one of the unities subordinated to it. (1191-1192)

Formalism, because of its limited approach, cannot account for the multi-form structure of a work that is as complex as the novel, where there is more to the from than an algorithm or equation that dictates the placement of words in a kind of universal form.

Where might one turn to reconcile the ties between science and literature? Communication is necessary in both disciplines without which even the most basic of ideas cannot be constructed for consideration among peers or the public. The next place to look might be found within the one thing that both disciplines have in common: language.

At any given moment of its evolution, language is stratified not only into linguistic dialects in the strict sense of the word…but also…into languages that are socio-ideological: languages of social groups, “professional” and “genetic” languages, languages of generations and so forth. (Bakhtin 1199)

There are, of course, different kinds of languages for different disciplines, made clear when one directly compares the words and styles used by science and literature when communicating within the disciplines. However, the fundamental elements of language are present, the syntax and grammar rules remain mostly intact, and communication can be maintained between two different people of two very different disciplines with mostly ease and only little explanation of terms. The reconciliation then, must take place within the structure of language itself and the recognition of the heteroglossia that permeates the language throughout, lending itself to constant comparisons and contrasts for the sake of importance or social relevance.

Though taking a scientific approach to literature does not seem effective in its empirical study of literature, at least in the way it has been explored by the Formalists, one might be inclined to wonder what would happen if science was explored through literature. Science fiction explores the ideas of science in great depth, but another way to look at science ‘literarily’ might be to take scientific theories and explore them not only as if they were fiction, but postulate them as fiction, removing entirely any links to the reality which they try to explain, and instead imagine the possibilities of a world where these empirical facts were deemed meaningless or unimportant. Given the arbitrary nature of measurement, as described above, it is not much of a stretch to imagine the shortcomings of science in such a way to render the discipline helpless in the realm of the imaginary. Literature, on the other hand, can operate both in the realm of science, as a tool for exploring hypothetical scenarios, and in the realm of the imaginary, by creating worlds where the laws of science are not only inapplicable but deemed completely useless or even unnecessary.

For example, in science the concept of time is an important tool of measurement to assist in the accuracy of experimentation and longevity of scientific measurement. Time is not questioned in science except to establish a ground for comparison between experiments, and it is not doubted that time is an influence on the outcome of experimentation. Literature, in the realm of science, is also subject to time—the time of the reader to sit and physically read the text—which constitutes participation in a sort of science experiment by timing the point at which a subject begins reading and finishes reading a text. Once the same experiment is moved into the realm of literature, the same rules do not necessarily apply: within the text what is postulated as truth is what is true, regardless of the experience of the reader. If an author writes, for instance, that there exists no concept of time within the frame of the novel, then it does not matter how much science attempts to interfere with the experience of the words on the page, the literature is impenetrable to the effects, and science is helpless to influence the experience of the reader since science cannot operate in the imaginary, enforcing absolute objectivity and adherence to its rules.

Why read literature? Literature is an opportunity to cultivate ideas in a realm free from the constraints of not only science, but also of subjectivity. Though it feels like a safe argument to say that all literature is subjective, due to the nature of language, without any inherent qualities, it can be argued that the perceived subjectivity is only a product of disciplines—like science—enforcing rules and methods on the world in an attempt to make sense of reality according to their own standards. The rules are an illusion to bring sense to an otherwise unpredictable world. Even the rules of language fall victim to the incessant rules and regulations of science, but they are only constructs of the human mind. These constructs allow us to see patterns, but they also enforce the rule of subjectivity—an interpretation that can only be conceived of within the constructs of the rules of both science and literature. Literature, however, offers more freedom for ideas, allowing the mind free reign and ultimately an escape of the confines of law and rules, which may be seen as a great reason to find one lost in a good piece of literature.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. From Discourse in the Novel. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. First Edition. Editors: Leitch, Vincent B., et. al. W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 2001. Pp. 1190-1220.

Eichenbaum, Boris. From The Theory of the “Formal Method”. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. First Edition. Editors: Leitch, Vincent B., et. al. W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London, 2001. Pp. 1062-1087.

PHI 38: "Selfishness or Cooperation: Properties of Units of Natural Selection in Dawkins' The Selfish Gene"

Jolene Brown

Prof. V. Keyser

Philosophy 38

17 July 2009

Selfishness or Cooperation:

Properties of Units of Natural Selection in Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene

In the book The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins there is a case built for the importance of the genetic unit as the sole operator of natural selection. He claims that a unit of natural selection has three properties, and that the largest unit that exhibits all three of those properties is the definitive unit of natural selection. However, he does not account for all the things that would be required of a unit of natural selection, and his argument itself is based on a large assumption that one must accept before his argument can be seen as a good explanation for the gene being the unit of natural selection. In this way, his argument can be considered weakened since it is missing at least one fundamental element that would assist in natural selection, and that the argument that he makes cannot work without that fundamental assumption.

Dawkins argument consists of three premises and a conclusion which he draws from those premises. His first premise is that the properties of a unit of natural selection can be identified as longevity, fecundity and copying fidelity. He identifies these properties because, he claims, they support the stability of the unit:

Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things. A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or common enough to deserve a name. (Dawkins 12)

With this first premise Dawkins is identifying those things he feels contribute to the stability of those units of natural selection, and in turn, to the stability of the organisms. With this argument the emphasis is placed on the stability of the organism—the “survival machine”—that houses, protects and assists in the recreation of the natural selection unit.

There is, however, an assumption made in this first premise not addressed by Dawkins in his argument: that these properties (longevity, fecundity, copying fidelity) can be measured in such a way to determine whether or not they are quantitatively significant. For example, it may be argued that science cannot empirically study, or quantitatively measure the longevity of a single gene within a gene pool, or for that matter, measure the longevity of several hundred genes in order to create a wide enough sample to claim that genes that stay in the gene pool longer have more influence on natural selection than others. “It is [the gene’s] potential immorality that makes a gene a good candidate as the basic unit of natural selection” (36) and no amount of science can accurately measure or account for an “immortal” longevity: the longevity factor is rendered unfalsifiable with that assumption of quantification in place. The longevity property may be an important property to a unit of natural selection, but the inclusion of this property undermines the argument itself by making it impossible to be measured by any form of accurate science.

The second premise is that natural selection operates on the largest single entity that embodies these three properties. The importance of the largest entity, in contrast to the smallest, is that natural selection chooses traits that are deemed better for “stability” or survival. Natural selection cannot select a directly from the gene pool because the genes are so small and so ineffectual in the environment that instead natural selection looks at the effects of the gene on the machine that it builds. “If selection tried to choose DNA molecules directly it would hardly find any criterion by which to do so…The important differences between genes emerge only their effects” (235). Based on this argument, it seems likely that natural selection would need to have, at the very minimum, a unit that would have enough effect on the survival machine to allow selection in the first place. The property of longevity also rules out most other organisms beyond the gene, since the gene does last longer than all the organisms that it is a part of. It would seem this premise is a solid second premise in the argument. The third premise is the claim that it is the gene, and no other organism or entity that embodies all of these properties and is the largest one that can be acted on by natural selection. This claim, too, is a fairly straight forward claim, and does not seem to have any underlying assumptions, much like the second premise. Based on these three premises, the conclusion drawn is that the gene is the largest unit on which natural selection is acting, and that the phenotype of the genes are what is being selected for by natural selection.

The problem one is left with after analysis of Dawkins’ argument is not any invalidity of his argument, despite the assumption one must allow in the first premise. The problem lies in that there seems to be one major trait of the natural selection unit that he either did not take into account, or that he discounted altogether as a factor: cooperation. Cooperation, in this sense, does not refer only to the behavioral adaption of two entities working together (altruistically or not), but instead physical cooperation between two of the units to devise more and more extravagant and complicated survival machines.

…evolution is constructive because of cooperation…Cooperation allows specialization and thereby promotes biological diversity. […] Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of evolution is its ability to generate cooperation in a competitive world. (Nowak 1563)

Cooperation as a behavior begins at the physical level, similar to the selfishness that Dawkins argues for throughout his book. However, cooperation, it can be argued, is fundamental to the successful reproduction of genetic information. Without the fundamental cooperation between to replicators in the original “replicator soup” there would not be the “survival machines” to house the selfish units of natural selection. Though the genes may still be selfish, the individual unit does not have enough power on its own to become and maintain itself as a unit of natural selection: the Dawkins quote on page 235 (stated above) is clear in this claim. This property of cooperation can then be posited as another, if not the underlying, property that allows natural selection to operate in the first place. Through the combination of genes to form their survival machines, they not only allow natural selection to operate on their effects, but they also are able to reproduce themselves with other genes to form new and elaborate survival machines.

Dawkins may be right in that the largest single unit of natural selection is the gene. The evidence he presents in this way is fairly convincing, and other scientists tend to agree. What is up for debate is the idea that the genes are intrinsically selfish. Without other genes, the genes themselves cannot operate effectively as a unit of natural selection or as effective reproducers of their own genetic material for longevity because “…individual genes cannot be considered as replicators because they do not behave as separate units during reproduction” (Lloyd, Sect. 2.2). The genes may have started out as a form of replicator but natural selection immediately began favoring those replicators that could cooperate with other replicators to form large, more complex and protective survival machines. This leap from the selfish replicator to the cooperative gene seems to be one that Dawkins is either unwilling to make or has decided not to make because it would undermine some of his other ideas. Whatever his reason, it is important to realize that without cooperation, the at least one of the properties that he posits as important to the individual unit of natural selection, fecundity, does not operate without the important quality of the unit to cooperate effectively with other units.

Works Cited

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene: 30^th Anniversary Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Lloyd, Elisabeth. "Units and Levels of Selection." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

Nowak, Martin A., et al. “Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation.” Science magazine. Vol. 314 (December 2006). Pages 1560-1563. URL = http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5805/1560.

ENL 164: "Irrational Foundations of a Rational World"

Irrational Foundations of a Rational World

The philosophers Lucretius and Hume were both rationalist philosophers, developing theories based solely on what man can reason within their mind alone, deemphasizing the importance of the senses. In believing that the senses were inferior to reason both philosophers limited themselves to reasonable explanations, using their mind and limiting their senses, to describe not only the world around them, but also to explain the very origins of man, the earth, and indeed the universe. Lucretius’ use of the clinamen as an explanation for the beginning of life is similar to Hume’s explanation of induction, in that both thinkers pose theories that are built on arguments springing from the irrational. Both authors attempt to describe the rational world in a logical way, yet end up resorting to, or realizing that, it is ultimately irrational beginnings that underlie all their rational explanations of reality. Each explanation pulls from the absurd and irrational to describe the origins of the universe, thus ultimately creating a rational world from irrational origins.

Lucretius’ posed that the origins of life were explained by the slight tilt of atoms within a void, which he called the “clinamen,” and it is this swerve that created collisions and binding of atoms that formed all that we know. In the following, Lucretius describes clinamen, and the origins of being:

And a random point in space [the atoms] swerve a little,
Only enough to call it a tilt in motion.
For if atoms did not tend to lean, they would
Plummet like raindrops through the depts of space,
No first collisions born, no blows created,
So nature never could have made a thing. (220-225)

The important word in the above passage is “random,” for it seems completely irrational, and therefore contrary to a rationalist perspective, for an incident leading to all of life to be a consequence of a “random” swerve in the void. This random swerve, and especially his use of the word “random,” implies a lack of rational cause, purpose, or idea that was the force behind the swerve in itself. A rational perspective emphasizes the importance of reason driving all incidents in the world, and only what man can rationalize can be conceived. To propose an origin of the world based on the foundation of a single, irrational, random event contradicts the rest of the theory in its entirety, undermining the foundations before the rest of the arguments are even described.

Lucretius posits, subtly, the argument of the clinamen as just another rational proposition in his argument for atomic structure and formulations. However, unlike Lucretius, Hume does not approach induction as an infallible argument, instead quickly disputing the inductive rationale and posing the limitations of induction at the core of his argument. Hume writes that “The mind can never possibly find the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examination. For the effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it” (111). This is Hume’s fundamental flaw of induction, because induction can only be used with a foundation of experience to guide inductive conclusions. Experience cannot dictate the future, explains Hume, because if one did not have experience to dictate the outcome of a cause, then every effect would be subject to extreme doubt. Subsequently, Humans cannot understand the ultimate cause of all being without the ability to conceive of a cause based on an effect. After all, the “effect” that one perceives is, in many cases, entirely different from the cause: “It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance” (117). The ultimate cause, or root cause, cannot be derived from events that occur after the cause, just as future events cannot be predicted from previous.

Experience is weak forms of evidence used explain the relation between cause and the supposed perceived effects. One example of experience being weak evidence is the impossibility that any person can experience the beginnings of the universe, or even conceive of the beginnings of time. Humans have no experiences that can be reasonably used to describe these events, but it is only those experiences that can be used as evidence. This explanation then, is not satisfactory to describe the origins of being, and Hume realizes that these correlations are entirely arbitrary. He writes:

In a word, then, every effect is a distinct event from its cause. It could not, therefore, be discovered in the cause, and the first invention or conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary…the conjunction of it with the cause must appear equally arbitrary…In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience. (111)

Hume’s induction plays a similar role to Lucretius’ clinamen because, though induction at first seems to be based in rational thought, ultimately there seems to be no rational foundations for it. Induction is based on experience, argues Hume, but experience is limited and cannot be applied to those events that have not, or cannot be experienced. Nor can the cause be drawn from the effect that we perceive, as the above quote describes, as is shown in everyday examples of what we consider to be cause and effect.

The shortcomings of each of the arguments are given different emphasis by each author. Lucretius does not attempt to explain the absurdity of his unexplained postulate. Of course it is not hard to understand why, because it is hard to explain the origins of life without the use of a higher power as a source of creation. Lucretius, however, rules out even that option early in Book Two with the assertion that “not for us and not by gods/was this world made. There’s too much wrong with it” (181-182). His theory of clinamen is as imperfect as the world itself, and it is the imperfect beginning that will birth the imperfect world. Hume realizes this when he writes that “one mistake is the necessary parent of another” (88). It is definitely reasonable for Lucretius to assume an irrational beginning for an irrational world, so the absurd becomes normal in light of this correlation. Hume, in contrast, approaches the limitations of induction confidently, and purposefully, exposing the weaknesses as more evidence of its certainty. He explains:

All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relations of Cause and Effect…And here it is constantly supposed, that there is a connexion between the present fact and that which is inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. (109)

Much like Lucretius’ imperfect beginning, induction is another example of imperfect reasoning that seems to harbor the truth within its imperfections, for, even “the most ignorant and stupid peasants, nay infants, nay even brute beasts, improve by experience” (118).

Lucretius resorts to irrationality to prove his argument, and Hume realizes the irrationality of his argument, yet both authors are rationalists attempting to find rationale in the world. This only proves the absurdity of the world around us, and the relevance of a “science of the imaginary” that we find described by ‘pataphysics. Hume seems to realize this when he writes:

Hence we may discover the reason, why no philosopher, who is rational and modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural operation, or to show distinctly the action of that power, which produces any single effect in the universe…The most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of our ignorance. (111-112)

Lucretius also describes a ‘pataphysical idea when we writes:

Nothing’s so very easy to believe
Which at first does not seem incredible;
So too nothing’s so great or wondrous, whose
Wonder will not diminish, little by little. (1025-1028)

We are left with few arguments that give us knowledge, and many questions that take away what we thought we knew. Our foundations in science leave us with more answers than solutions, and the closer we come to the rational, the more irrational we become.

Works Cited

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Lucretius. On the Nature of Things: De rerum natura. Trans. Anthony M. Esolen. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.