Reading Notes: September 28th, 2022

“Since human beings are rational, and not merely reactive, agents, it is possible to think of the majority of their activities as purposive or directed towards some end. Aspects of life, such as the religious, the emotional, the practical, or the intellectual, may all be regarded as aiming at certain objects or states, the attainment of which constitutes their satisfaction or good, and the non-attainment of which frustrates or dissatisfies them. For instance, if the goal of religion is communion with the divine nature, then, until it finds this, the religious consciousness is frustrated and continues to strive, but, in achieving such communion, it reaches its satisfaction and is able to rest contented, be this rest either permanent or temporary. Bradley claims that truth is what satisfies the intellect. In truth, the intellect finds a rest and contentment that is its own good or end. Meaninglessness, contradiction, and falsehood, on the other hand, all produce in the intellect a sense of uneasiness or dissatisfaction, in which state it cannot remain. They leave us with a “certain felt need” that must be met, and so we search for a state in which the intellect can rest contented. Thus, in this picture of our thinking lives which Bradley paints, intellectual satisfaction plays a dual role: it is the motivating force for the dynamic movement of thought that we term “enquiry”, as well as a practical criterion of the successful completion of that enquiry—in other words, of truth.” (Mander, An Introduction to Bradley’s Metaphysics, 4) 

“The radical fallacy of the corpuscular as well as of the dynamical theory consists in the delusion that the conceptual elements of matter can be grasped as separate and real entities. The corpuscular theorists take the element of inertia and treat it as real by itself, while Boscovich, Faraday, and all those who define atoms or molecules as “centers of force,” seek to realize the corresponding element, force, as an entity by itself. In both cases products of abstraction are mistaken for kinds of reality.” (Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, 162) 

“The reality of all things which are, or can be, objects of cognition, is founded upon, or, rather, consists in, their mutual relations. A thing in and by itself can be neither apprehended nor conceived; its existence is no more a presentation of sense than a deliverance of thought. Things are known to us solely through their properties; and the properties of things are nothing else than their interactions and mutual relations….The real existence of things is coextensive with their qualitative and quantitative determinations. And both are in their nature relations, quality resulting from mutual action, and quantity being simply a ration between terms neither of which is absolute. Every objectively real thing is thus a term in numberless series of mutual implications, and forms of reality beyond these implications are as unknown to experience as to thought. There is no absolute material quality, no absolute material substance, no absolute physical unit, no absolutely simple physical entity, no absolute physical constant, no absolute standard, either of quantity or quality, no absolute motion, no absolute rest, no absolute time, no absolute space. There is no form of material existence which is either its own support or its own measure, and which abides, either quantitatively or qualitatively, otherwise than in perpetual change, in an unceasing flow of mutations. An object is large only as compared with another which, as a term of this comparison, is small, but which, in comparison with a third object, may be indefinitely large; and the comparison which determines the magnitude of objects is between its terms alone, and not between any or all of its terms and an absolute standard. An object is hard as compared with another which is soft, but which, in turn, may be contrasted with a third still softer; and, again, there is no standard object which is either absolutely hard or absolutely soft.” (Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, 184-185) 

“The same considerations which evince the relativity of motion also attest the relativity of its conceptual elements, space and time. As to space, this is at once apparent. And of time, “the great independent variable” whose supposed constant flow is said to be the ultimate measure of all things, it is sufficient to observe that it is itself measured by the recurrence of certain relative positions of objects or points in space, and that the periods of this recurrence are variable, depending upon variable physical conditions. This is as true of the data of our modern time-keepers, the clock and chronometer, as of those of the clepsydra and hour-glass of the ancients, all of which are subject to variations of friction, temperature, changes in the intensity of gravitation, according to the latitude of the places of observation, and so on. And it is equally true of the records of the great celestial time-keepers, the sun and the stars. After we have reduced our apparent solar day to the mean solar day, and this, again, to the side-real day, we find that the interval between any two transits of the equinoctial points is not constant, but becomes irregular in consequence of nutation, of the precession of the equinoxes, and of numerous other secular perturbations and variations due to the mutual attraction of the heavenly bodies. The constancy of the efflux of time, like that of the spatial positions which serve as the basis for our determination of the rates and amounts of physical motion, is purely conceptual.” (Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, 204-205) 

“As there is no absolute standard of quality, so there is no absolute measure of duration, nor is there an absolute system of coordinates in space to which the positions of bodies and their changes can be referred. A physical ens per se and a physical constant are alike impossible, for all physical existence resolves itself into action and reaction, and action imports change.” (Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, 206) 

“It is not true that we can mentally evacuate space of all its contents, and have in the mind, or before the mind, the form or image of pure space. On the contrary, the idea of space is invariably associated in consciousness with some definite quality of sense. When we attempt to bring space before the mind (or, as it is usually called, to “realize” it) in its visual aspect, it always appears in synthesis with a mental reproduction of color, however faint. Similarly, when we make the effort of mentally “realizing” or representing it in its tactual aspect, it proves equally indissociable from a reproduction of some form of pressure or feeling. In this respect the arguments of Hume and Berkeley (which are of necessity simple appeals to consciousness) have never been successfully met. The dissociation between the “idea” of spatial extension and the feeling or feelings constituting sensation which we are able—and, for the purposes of discursive reasoning, constrained—to effect, is not an intuitional, but a conceptual dissociation.” (Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, 233-234)”