Knowledge Today and Knowledge Tomorrow - Article Example

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow To what extent is commonly accepted knowledge discarded in favor of new truths that have a more evidential basis? Looking specifically at examples in the science of physics and the practice of ethics, we will see knowledge is turned over quite often in favor of better, more useful truths that enhance and improve upon the practical implications of both fields. Physics, in particular, has gone through systematic revisions throughout the thousands of years since the earliest development of the science. Similarly, ethics as a discipline has seen major changes in what value systems are held up as best—so much so that it can be difficult to trust the conclusions or prescriptions of ethicists of the present era. In this paper, we will explore the ways in which physics and ethics have organically evolved since their development at roughly the same time in history, as well as the ways in which they continue to grow. By discussing the histories of both fields, we hope to come to some general principles regarding how knowledge changes through time, from development to acceptance to substitution. Physics is a prime example of how knowledge can and does change through time and because of constant examination. The birth of physics as a science occurred in Ancient Greece with the philosophy of Aristotle, who postulated that space, time, and matter are finite and absolute. Under this idea, objects move toward a future “end” or ‘goal” toward which they are striving with purpose. Aristotle’s view of the world helped to explain everything from the largest objects in the sky (astronomy) to the smallest objects (Connell). It was truly a “paradigm” that helped to explain phenomena. In that way, it was a useful way for almost two thousand years of thinking about nature. As time went on, the top minds in physics began to see holes in the theory for explaining the world: Galileo observed the motion of the moon was not smooth, and Descartes redefined matter as interdependent, rather than in Aristotle’s “independent” sense. In modern times, the paradigm of physics established by Aristotle had begun to shift, and knowledge previously treated as unassailable had changed. Isaac Newton developed a mechanistic view of the universe in which objects move toward each other due to an inherent property of matter, not due to any movement toward a final “end” or “goal”; that redefinition of matter and thus of physics itself created a need to look at other areas of knowledge, including of ethics, politics, and art. With physics serving as an underlying factor in the creation of the modern age, a new paradigm was ushered in and the previous paradigm discarded—all roughly within a period of about 200 years from the beginning of the 16th century to the publication of Newton’s Principia in 1687 (Bechler). Physics would experience a deep change again at the start of the 20th century with the publication of Albert Einstein’s Annus Mirabilis papers, which provided the foundation for his theory of special relativity, which did away with Newton’s definition of matter—moving the paradigm toward seeing time and space as interconnected. The pendulum of physics continues to swing in the direction of fundamental change. Quantum physics became necessary to understand the fundamental properties of atoms and subatomic particles. Like previous changes in physics (especially moving from the teleological view to the mechanistic view of Newton), the shift toward quantum mechanics required a fundamental change in humans see nature—introducing fundamental probabilistic features in nature that challenged the old views of a deterministic universe in which cause-and-effect is an important, universal feature for explanations. Just as the adoption of a mechanistic view of nature required by Newton’s theories influenced the ethical philosophy of the materialistic utilitarianism or the worldly political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, so too does quantum physics require rethinking common knowledge. Einstein was chiefly interested in how the indeterministic worldview of quantum physics worked in a world in which God governs ethics. One could argue that the truth of physics has not changed during these thousands of years in which the science has evolved from Aristotle’s to Newton’s to Einstein’s. Surely, the actual principles of the universe do not change on account of what humans know (or think they know) about nature. However, what is at issue is not the fundamental truths that physics but rather scientists’ knowledge and exploration of them. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and consolidates knowledge about the world. So, even if the things we are studying have not changed, the way we build and organize our knowledge about those things we are studying has on account of new and increased understanding of physics. The paradigm shifts discussed above have not only caused scientists to question and redefine concepts of things in the world, but their methodologies for observing and organizing their knowledge of the world. Within the modern period, physics has fundamentally changed numerous times, which leaves us to question the extent to which commonly accepted knowledge in the field today will stand up against decades and centuries of further inquiry. An undercurrent of this discussion so far has been the changes occurring in the practice of ethics throughout the centuries, related to and perhaps even driven by the upheavals experienced in what scientists thought they knew from physics. Ethics in the modern sense, in fact, began in the same place that physics did: with Aristotle. Aristotle postulated that ethics is a discussion of what virtues and vices make for a good human life. His discussion begins from that point in trying to find common conceptions, from Ancient Greek society, of what habits and behaviors constitute a good human life (Bambrough). In that sense, ethics began in its infancy as a science trying to determine what characteristics help to achieve the highest good. Much like objects in Aristotle’s physics, humans are in motion, trying to achieve their ultimate “purpose” or “end”. Medieval scholars would use these premises to get to theological conclusions. But, just as in physics, the modern era introduced a paradigm shift in how philosophers discussed and thought about ethics. Immanuel Kant, the primary voice behind deontological (or “duty”-based) morality, advocated for a view that certain actions are “intrinsically good” or “good in themselves” (Driver). Deontology shifted the conversation in a number of ways. First, the conversation shifted from character attributes to actions—namely, in judging whether certain actions were or were not moral. Second, like in physics, morality was now seen as having intrinsic properties within certain moral qualities, just as how Newton defined matter as having intrinsic properties attracting or repelling objects away from each other. Third, the standard of value became acting purely from duty, which usually coincided with the interests of society or God, rather than achieving one’s own personal excellence. Aristotle’s way of thinking about ethics had been fundamentally undermined by this new emphasis on Kantian principles, changing the way that modern people viewed morality compared to their ancestors from the medieval period in which Aristotelians dominated the scene. Utilitarianism (or, generally, consequentialism) changed the conversation further by deemphasizing duty and the intrinsic properties of actions and focusing on the consequences of actions rather than motivations. Describing the standard of value for an action as its consequences toward happiness of an individual or of society, utilitarianism is based on a hedonic calculus complicated in a way that makes it the opposite of Aristotle’s purposefully practical form of situational ethics emphasizing character attributes (Hardin). The mathematical content of utilitarianism models the rationalistic, mathematical rigor of Newton’s calculus, which formed the foundation of the Newtonian paradigm in physics during the modern era. The development of utilitarianism provided a direct contrast to the thinking that went into developing deontology by focusing on consequences and observations instead of intentions and intuition. With regard to ethics, one argument against the idea of shifting paradigms in morality might be the idea that what we never have knowledge of what is ethical and what is unethical to begin with. Answers to that kind of question lie in the field of “meta-ethics”, which is a set of questions regarding how philosophers understand and know about what is right and what is wrong. Whereas “ethics” refers to situations and applications of values in the real world (such as “Should I lie to the murderer at the door?”), meta-ethics is necessarily abstract and relates to a broad range of specific questions (such as “Are there absolutes in terms of what is moral or immoral?”). It is certainly fair to think that there is no real knowledge in ethics, especially since the objects that make up ethics (such as values and propositions) are non-observable and may in fact be subjective. Even if ethics is composed of subjective or relative moral norms, one can still know them. If the correct ethical system is one in which we all construct our own moral truths, as utilitarianism seems to propose, in order for that ethical system to work, the subject must be cognizant of what those moral norms and commandments are. If the correct ethical system is one in which there are objective truths, as deontology seems to propose, then likewise the subject must know them in order for the ethical system to work. Ethics itself presupposes knowledge of ethical principles, so to talk about ethics without knowledge of what is ethical does not makes sense. In other words, to object to the idea that our knowledge of what is ethical has changed as fundamental ideas of have changed on the basis that ethical knowledge does not exist is self-defeating in the sense that ethics itself depends on ethical knowledge for the concept to exist in the first place. Philosophers have developed and elaborated upon what ethics means throughout the centuries, sometimes in ways that contradicted the ideas of those who came before them—as we saw in the case of Aristotle versus Kant versus the advocates of utilitarianism. The significance of whether knowledge, or “truths”, commonly accepted at one time are discarded in future eras is clear for our present state of affairs: if we are not sure where the truths we have today will be in ten, one hundred, or one thousand years from now, how can we give any value or trust to them? After all, looking at the history of science and of ethics in particular, it seems the greatest of ideas for one time can just as easily be put aside as wrong or even “harmful” depending on the lens we take. Seeing the issue in such narrow-minded terms, however, can itself be damaging in the sense that even if our current state of knowledge is not preserved verbatim in the near- and long-term futures, there is still the consolation that those truths and that knowledge will serve as the basis for great discoveries, inventions, and future changes in the science. In other words, knowledge—no matter what its future holds—is cumulative; concepts treated as “real” today may not be “real” tomorrow (for example, “ether” in the lexicon of Aristotle and Descartes), but they are still worth considering as building blocks in the overall organization of our knowledge about the world. Seeing science and ethics through that liberal lens allows one to ascribe value and appreciation for the work of scientists and philosophers while keeping an eye toward the future and what it holds. In this paper, we explored the ways in which physics (from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein) and ethics (from virtue to duty to utility) have changed in the form of fundamental paradigm shifts. By discussing both a field of science and a field of philosophy as well as their interconnectedness, we answered general questions regarding how knowledge changes through major eras in human history. Indeed, as the methodologies and conclusions of physics and ethics (as well as other disciples that were not discussed in these pages) continue to develop and change through time, the ways in which we structure and organize that knowledge will change and produce the opportunity for larger advances. Works Cited Bambrough, Renford. The Philosophy of Aristotle. New York: Peguin Group, 2003. Bechler, Zev. Newtons Physics and the Conceptual Structure of the Scientific Revolution. New York: Springer, 1991. Connell, Richard J. Natures Causes. New York: P. Lang, 1995. Driver, Julia. Ethics: The Fundamentals. New York: Blackwell, 2007. Hardin, Russell. Morality within the Limits of Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Read More