Science is widely admired as a body of knowledge that seems objective and beyond dispute.
The statements, principles, and laws set forth in science textbooks seem clear, they are
backed up by evidence, and the answers to all of the exercises are in the back of the
book.
But working scientists know well that beyond the first impression given by science textbooks,
the principles, facts, and laws of science require interpretation.
Everyone agrees that the bible requires interpretation, and so too does science.
Without an awareness of the need for interpretation of scientific claims, someone might all too
easily overinterpret them without being aware of it and naively identify a specific philosophical
position with science.
Let’s take the case of atoms.
The ancient world was familiar with a certain theory of material things called atomism.
Atomism understands ordinary things such as cats and dogs, grass, flowers, and trees in
terms of a specific form of analysis called quantitative division.
If we imagine a whole, then divide it into parts, then divide the parts into parts, the
question comes up whether the process of division proceeds without end.
If it does not, then there must be some fundamental units that are indivisible.
Such fundamental indivisible units came to be called atoms – the Greek word for uncut.
Atomists were those who held that all things are composed of tiny invisible atoms combining
and recombining in empty space either by chance or perhaps other factors -- depending on the
theory.
And atomists held that atoms being arranged in various configurations and changing place
explained all the features and changes of higher level phenomena such as cats and dogs.
Now, atomism exercises a high degree of imaginative appeal, and has a certain intuitive simplicity,
since division into parts is so easily conceivable and so too is locomotion.
But other ancient philosophers such as Aristotle opposed atomism with many objections.
If atomism is true, he reasoned, then forms such as cats and dogs are not substantial
forms but accidental arrangements of atoms.
And if that is so, then cats and dogs and similar things are not really real or primary
substances, and so do not substantially generate or corrupt.
And those implications are counterintuitive.
Furthermore, atomism also implied that there is such a thing as empty space, a view to
which Aristotle and other philosophers raised objections.
For these reasons and many others, Aristotle rejected atomism.
He identified the root of atomism in the limitation of analysis in terms of quantitative
division alone.
So, in response, he proposed not only another account of material constitution, but another
kind of analysis than quantitative division – one that better captures our intuitions
of what is real and what really changes and how.
Let us call it analysis in terms of matter and form or hylomorphic analysis.
Matter and form are not quantitative parts, but a distinct sort of internal and constitutive
source of things.
Form makes matter to be what it is in actuality as a certain kind of matter, and without form
making it to be what it is matter does not exist at all or act.
Act and operation of material things follows from their form or from efficient causes.
Ordinary things like cats and dogs are really real, primary substances, and the substantial
forms of such wholes call for and constitute the secondary matter or parts according to
their order and kind.
Lower primary substances such as elements can be taken up into higher primary substances,
but in doing so the elements participate in the whole in a new mode of existence and action
called virtual presence.
Now, let us turn to some contemporary science.
Chemistry sets before us the Periodic Table of the Elements.
But how shall we interpret it?
Many people, without thinking much about it, jump prematurely to an atomistic interpretation
of the Periodic Table of the Elements.
It is easy to see why.
After all, the Elements on the Table are called atoms.
And teachers commonly introduce the atoms by saying things like “they are the fundamental
building blocks of nature.”
But let’s think about that interpretation.
The Elements of the Table are not fundamental, are they?
After all, they are themselves divisible into parts – the protons, neutrons, and electrons
– and according to contemporary physics those are divisible too.
Furthermore, textbook diagrams of atoms, and the compounds they form, suggest to the imagination
that atoms are more like tinkertoys than blocks.
But is that what atoms are?
Little tinkertoys?
Does the Periodic Table of the Elements entail that each thing in the natural world is really
just a set of little tiny tinkertoys bonded by forces?
That sounds like a version of philosophical atomism, but is that what the science is saying?
More than a few physicists and chemists grant that such a view would be an over interpretation
of the chemical facts.
It is a specific philosophical interpretation of the Table, and not the only one on offer.
The other is hylomorphism.
On this view, we ask various questions.
What is the nature of the Elements listed in the Table?
Granted they are real in some way, but in what way?
Are they primary substances with their own substantial form?
Or are their forms accidental?
Is Sodium, for example, a primary substance of its own or a certain accidental form of
protons, neutrons, and electrons?
Or does the answer depend on the state in which the atom exists?
It is one thing for an atom to participate in a larger thing and another to exist on
its own.
Does it exist in the same way in each condition?
Now, when atoms participate in wholes, do they retain their own proper form and mode
of existence and action?
Can they be called virtual presences?
Or does the answer depend on the kind of thing the atoms are participating in?
Salt, for example, or a human being.
And is the answer to all these questions the same for all the Elements?
Hylomorphism is open to, and arguably better accounts for, the many states of existence
behaviors of atoms.
Now, some people, and especially some scientists, might become frustrated with such philosophical
questions.
But without such questions one might naively interpret the Periodic Table of the Elements
to mean that philosophical atomism and its mode of understanding material constitution
is simply the scientific mode of understanding things.
It is not.
Or it is not necessarily.
Now what we have said here about chemistry, goes also for physics too.
Whether there are fundamental material things and forces, and what they are, is still an
open question in physics.
And whatever it may answer, similar philosophical questions remain.
The main point is this: philosophical atomism is one thing, hylomorphism is another, and
physics and chemistry are still another.
And how to interpret philosophically the contemporary science is also an open question and important
for everyone to ask.
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