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the question “what is a law of nature?” In the two chapters of Whitehead we’ve
been reading Whitehead suggests four possible answers which I find useful for
examining a broad range of metaphysical approaches. I’m going to try and
discuss Alexander Bird’s approach to these questions also.
Whitehead argues that imposed law will be deterministic: “what God meant he
did. When he said let there be light, there was light and not a mere imitation or
a statistical average” (AoI, 145). The order and exactness of imposed law are its
prime advantages, particularly in promoting research towards knowledge of such
laws. They are determinate, God in his wisdom has chosen them and it is for us
to learn the greatness (and determinist dualism) of God.
I’m not sure if anyone would defend such a Deist understanding of the laws of
nature nowadays. If anyone were to hold to such a system I would argue that it
is likely also that imposed law will be necessary. Bird argues in his book that
the brute identity of natural law in certain theories makes them contingent
since the only proof of their identity is that they have that identity in this
possible world. [It’s just occurred to me that Bird’s understanding of necessary
is a trans-world proof; something is necessary if it is true in this and all other
possible worlds. Analytic philosophy takes some getting used to.] The possible
worlds variance of laws of nature will make little difference to Deist imposed
law since any monist theology will want to argue that God is God across all
possible worlds (if there are any) and that the laws of nature are specified by
Him to be as they are across all these worlds. If the laws vary from world to
world then God is capricious, which is not something most theists would want.
Alternatively He is not all-knowing, since a multitude of worlds with different
laws suggests experiments. Finally the many possible worlds beyond this one
might be expressions of God’s many properties and to deny them real existence
would be to limit God, in which case the laws of nature are contingent since
they vary depending on which of God’s worlds we’re in, or they’re necessary
since some aspects of God are the same wherever you are (his omnipotence
etc.). I guess Spinoza and Leibniz would be the place to look for these kinds of
ideas but it’s not really relevant here.
The doctrine of the law as immanent is like imposed law a realist conception of
nature which however denies the independence of entities and instead posits a
system of relations whose organisation is exemplary of the laws. It could be
described as a powers ontology since every thing plays an effective role.
Whitehead quotes Plato’s definition of Being as power [would you be able to
find and put together the different translations of this that you mentioned
Zach?].
In chapter VII Whitehead does very little description of immanent law and
jumps straight to the consequences of such a conception of the law (AoI, 143):
1. “[S]cientists are seeking for explanations and not merely simplified
descriptions of their observations”. Immanent law is realist, non-
reductive and explanatory.
2. “[E]xact conformation of nature to any law is not to be expected”. Since
the order of the system is itself expressive of the laws (the law is not
imposed) variations between states of affairs will equal variations in their
outcomes. Which also lead onto the next point…
3. The laws of nature are contingent. Immanent law is descriptive of a
prevailing order in any system, if the order of this system changes then
the laws too will change.
4. We can have some trust in induction. Systems of immanent power about
which we have some knowledge of the law will be ordered systems, and
so it is probable that their evolution will be ordered and regular.
5. “[T]he doctrine of immanent law is untenable unless we can construct a
plausible metaphysical doctrine according to which the characters of the
relevant things are the outcome of their interconnections, and their
interconnections are the outcome of their characters”. This is perhaps the
most interesting point and I’ll come back to it.
6. The doctrine of immanent law is rationalist, it “is explanatory of the
possibility of understanding nature”.
Zach asked about the relation of law as mere description and immanent law and
I think that this is interesting. In the doctrine of the law as immanent which
Whitehead describes it is the organisation of the system which exemplifies the
laws of that system. So in fact any immanent law depends on the same
regularity as a law of mere description. The most important difference between
them (as they are described by Whitehead) would be that a system of
immanent would claim to make realist metaphysical statements regarding the
laws which can be generalised to other instances. A law of mere description
makes no such claim to a realist metaphysics and the generalisation of laws
beyond their particular instances will be forbidden. The boundaries between
these doctrines is fluid however since it seems likely that any positivist science
will in fact generalise beyond its observations of particular instances.
I think that Whitehead’s reply would be that laws which “direct or explain
particular matters of fact, not vice versa” are not really immanent laws. The
doctrine of the law as immanent is a description of Whitehead’s own
metaphysics (and probably in part those philosophers he considers to be his
allies; Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz…). The ultimate law of nature in Whitehead is
creativity, the power of transformation active in all things. Creativity is a non-
determining process from multiple facts (the prior state of the universe) to the
novel individual facts of a new moment. Laws of nature such as “the force of
attraction between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses
and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them” are
more abstract or particular statements of fact. I’m thinking through this still
but what is most fundamental about nature for Whitehead is the
transformation for occasion to occasion, the transference of aesthetic or
emotional interest and the repetition or divergence from inherited patterns.
Immanent law for Whitehead is a nondescript power inherent in all things
which isn’t really much of a law…
Imagining that Whitehead were to tell Bird that laws which “direct or explain
particular matters of fact, not vice versa” are not really immanent laws, he
would probably also take up Bird’s Platonism. While Whitehead is no doubt a
Platonist he’s a bit of a weird one. His ontological principle, that it is only in
relation to the becoming of actually existing things (actual occasions) that
anything has any relevance, makes any Platonic realm a sort of immanent field
to actuality instead of a higher or separate realm. Whether Whitehead sticks to
his ontological principle is questionable, but he does try. Bird on the other hand
is explicit in his understanding of universals as existing apart from any
particular instantiation.