Review

Author(s): Arthur Fine

Review by: Arthur Fine
Source: Isis, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 386-387
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/231844
Accessed: 18-06-2015 11:40 UTC

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386

BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 75: 2 : 277 (1984)

The introduction is a brief essay on the sights, and rich in challenges to favored
state of the art of history of geology, which dicta about science (witness the title).
Porter sees as thriving in the last thirty While the topics of discussion are at the
years because of its increasing separation level of science-in-general, the content of
from geology: "The great transformation in the essays captures the texture of workathe history of geology in the last generation day science. We find the untidy models for
has been the decline of canonizing and the energy levels in the ground state of
anathematizing history." This view is carbon (essay 3), a review of the six or
somewhat surprising since nearly every au- more distinct accounts of quantum dampthor credited with this transformation is a ing (4), a sketch of two current methods for
practicing geologist.
dealing with the small-signals properties of
The strength of this work is in its con- amplifiers and a lengthy discussion of the
venience and its thorough coverage of the calculations for exponential decay (5), an
recent literature on British geology in the overview of the (properly) quantum treatpast two centuries. Porter maintains "that ment of the laser (8), and detailed remarks
geology as an organized, connected science on the optical theorem of scattering theory
called by that name is not yet two hundred (essay 9).
While each of these essays contains mayears old." Of course the same could be
said of physics or chemistry. Considered terial relevant to the particular discussion,
within his framework, the bibliography is their cumulative impact is in aid of a genthorough and on the whole well chosen. It eral, unifying theme. It is the picture of an
is divided into ten chapters, from bibliog- "untidy" universe, a world of distinct parraphy and reference works (26 items) to ticulars whose individualities lend them"Geology, Culture, and the Arts" (22 selves to a "scientific" treatment only by
items, nearly all from the last decade). The employing partial analogies, crude generlengthier chapters, on specialist histories, alizations, and rough conceptual approxicognate sciences, studies by area, and bio- mations. The articulation of this picture
graphical studies, are appropriately subdi- sets up one of the author's central, and
vided. The work also includes chapters on provocative, claims; namely, that working
general histories and geology and religion. explanatory methods and goals, which call
An excellent index makes all of this acces- for the use of fundamental laws, actually
sible.
preclude the literal truth of those laws. A
The bibliography and the index are detailed look at real explanations, coupled
printed in a reduced typescript but so care- with a standard antirealist line (to the effect
fully spaced as to make it not only legible that inference from explanatory success to
but pleasing to the eye. The inclusion of the truth of the explanatory story is, in
fifteen pages of plates after the introduction general, fallacious), supports the author in
is a tribute to the taste of all those con- concluding that fundamental laws are not
nected with the production of this little some sort of "grand truths about nature."
book. After all, why are we students of hisPerhaps this is a species of antirealism,
tory if not for the delight afforded by such but it is not grounded in any general skepillustrations as these-and Porter's first- ticism about science, or knowledge. For as
rate explanatory captions?
strongly as the author is committed to the
CECILJ. SCHNEER untruth of basic laws, just as strongly does
she come out in favor of the reality of
causes and for the truth of causal expla* Philosophy of Science
nations as a condition of their acceptability. Thus insofar as we accept the move
from an observable effect to an unobservNancy Cartwright. How the Laws of able cause,
say, from the vapor trails in a
Physics Lie. 221 pp., figs., indexes. Ox- cloud chamber to the electrons that
proford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford
duce the trails, as providing a causal exUniversity Press, 1983. $22.50 (cloth);
planation, the author thinks we must also
$9.95 (paper).
accept the reality of the unobservable
The book consists of nine essays, one cause, here the electron. The focus on caucompletely new and the other eight sality, and the commitment to a causal
emended from essays already published or nexus, is very strong, strong enough to
forthcoming. It is a book of ideas and in- produce a causal criterion for the accept-

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BOOKREVIEWS-ISIS, 75: 2: 277 (1984)

ability of new theoretical entities (p. 67) as
well as a causal criterion for what properties are real (p. 181). In contrast with her
beliefs regarding fundamental laws and the
theoretical mechanisms they employ, the
author believes that causal stories told by
phenomenological laws can be true and
that causal agents can be real.
This asymmetry in the warrant science
supports between our beliefs in laws and
our beliefs in causes is the central epistemological feature of this book. Despite the
detailed and varied argument for this asymmetry that these essays provide, however,
I am not convinced. While this is not the
place to set out an opposing view, I should
at least mention where I think the author
may be vulnerable. It is, first, in her conception of an untidy universe, insofar as
she takes causes and causal relations to be
among its "factual" elements. I believe that
a more thoroughgoing untidiness would
find the facticity of causes altogether too
convenient and neat. Secondly, one might
wonder whether the basic asymmetry in
truth-warrant is not just an artifact of the
unequal demands these essays place on
theoretical versus causal explanation. For
whereas causal accounts are required to
explain why the causal effect actually occurs, theoretical accounts of laws are not
similarly required to explain why the law
actually holds. This is a sort of equivocation on the concept of explanation (technically, on the explanandum) that, clearly,
lets theoretical explanation off the truth
hook.
But there is more to this book than just
the asymmetry thesis. There is a "simulacrum" account of explanations, a causal
analysis of effective strategies in decision
theory, and lively discussions of approximations, the composition of causes, bridge
principles, and models. There is a lovely
portrayal of physics as theater in the seventh essay, and the final essay is devoted
to interpretive problems in quantum mechanics. Overall it is a book that informs
that
and provokes, and charms-and
makes one want to read more.
ARTHURFINE
P. M. Harman. Metaphysics and Natural
Philosophy: The Problem of Substance in
Classical Physics. xvi + 168 pp., bibl.,
index. Sussex: Harvester Press; Towata,
N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1982. $26.50

387

P. M. Harman. Energy, Force, and

Matter: The Conceptual Development of
Nineteenth-Century Physics. (Cambridge
History of Science Series). ix + 182 pp.,
illus., bibl., index. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982. $27.50 (cloth);
$8.95 (paper).
Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy is a
sensible book-no mean feat when dealing
with metaphysics. Harman explores the
role of metaphysics in the history of classical physics, considering a series of episodes centered respectively on Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Michael Faraday, Hermann von
Helmholtz, and James Clerk Maxwell. The
general aim is "to provide support for the
thesis that the articulation of scientific theories rests on metaphysical as well as empirical constraints." Although the thesis
will probably be conceded by many readers
at the outset, Harman's careful and competent development of his theme will be of
interest to a broad range of historians and
philosophers of science.
The metaphysical issue that threads its
way through the sections on Newton,
Leibniz, and Kant is the ontological question of the nature of matter and its relationship to force. Newton saw matter as in
essence passive, with motion and activity
in nature being sustained by "active principles," namely attractive and repulsive
forces, which were not inherent in matter,
but rather "were the manifestation of
God's . . . causal agency in nature" (pp.
24-25). As Harman emphasizes, Newton's
mechanical ontology was not passively
accepted by his successors, but rather
formed the subject of active debate.
Leibniz, in particular, posited an inherent
activity in matter, not dependent on the
kind of "divine superintendence of the natural order" (p. 45) assumed by Newton,
and resulting in the self-sufficiency of nature, as reflected in the law of conservation
of vis viva. Kant, finally, maintained that
attractive and repulsive forces "define the
essence of matter" (p. 69), with repulsive
forces forming the basis for the impenetrability of matter, and attractive forces
supplying the necessary dialectical counterbalance.
In the transition to the nineteenth century, where the narrative centers on Faraday, Helmholtz, and Maxwell, a certain
looseness in the historical presentation in-

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