HERMENEUTIC PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, VAN GOGH'S EYES, AND GOD

BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Editors

ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University JORGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science

KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens

Editorial Advisory Board

THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University

JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKYt, (Editor 1960-1997)

VOLUME225

HERMENEUTIC PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,

VAN GOGH'S EYES, AND GOD

Essays in Honor of Patrick A. Heelan, S .J.

Edited by

BABETTE E. BABICH Fordham University, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.,

and Georgetown University, Washington D.C., U.S.A.

SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-90-481-5926-0 ISBN 978-94-017-1767-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0

Printed an acid-iree paper

All Rights Reserved

© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2002

No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., Universite Catholique de Louvain, 1964

Patrick A. Heelan, S.J. Photograph by Ursula Bemist

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments IX

PREFACE I "Patrick Heelan" by JEAN LADRIERE & MARC JAGER xi

INTRODUCTION

BABETTE E. BABICH I The Fortunes of Incommensurability: Thoughtstyles, Paradigms, and Patrick A. Heelan's Hermeneutic of Science

HERMENEUTICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

SECTION SUMMARIES 19

STEPHEN TOULMIN I The Hermeneutics of the Natural Sciences 25

ROBERT P. CREASE I Experimental Life: Heelan on Quantum Mechanics 31

DIMITRI GINEV I The Hermeneutic Context of Constitution 43

RAGNAR FJELLAND I The "Copenhagen Interpretation" of Quantum Mechanics and Phenomenology 53

BABETTE E. BABICH I Sokal's Hermeneutic Hoax: Physics and the New Inquisition 67

ALLAN JANIK I Wittgenstein, Hertz, and Hermeneutics 79

JOSEPH J. KOCKELMANS I On the Interpretive Nature of Hertz's Mechanics 97

ROBERT C. SCHARFF I Comte and the Possibility of a Hermeneutics of Science 117

THEODORE KISIEL I Was heiftt das -die Bewandtnis? Retranslating the Categories ofHeidegger's Hermeneutics ofthe Technical 127

THOMAS M. SEEBOHM I The Hermeneutics of Texts 137

RICHARD COBB-STEVENS I Husserlian Hermeneutics: Mathematics and Theoria 153

JOHN J. CLEARY I Abstracting Aristotle's Philosophy of Mathematics 163 WOLFE MAYS I Piaget and Husserl: On Theory and Praxis in Science 177

TONY O'CONNOR I Human Agency and the Social Sciences: From Contextual Phenomenology to Genealogy 187

JOHN J. COMPTON I Toward a Phenomenological Philosophy of Nature 195

JOHN ZIMAN I No Man is an Island 203

ROM HARRE I Science as the Work of a Community 219

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TRUTH IN ART, VISUAL SPACE, AND THE PRAGMATIC

PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

SECTION SUMMARIES 231

JOSEPH MARGOLIS I Patrick Heelan's Interpretation of van Gogh's "Bedroom at Aries" 233

STEVEN CROWELL I Patrick Heelan's Innocent Eye 239

JACQUES TAMINIAUX I Merleau-Ponty's Reading ofHeidegger 251

BABETTE E. BABICH I Heidegger's Truth of Art and the Question of Aesthetics 265

D. CYRIL BARRETT, S.J. I Phenomenology and 20th Century Artistic Revolutions 279

IRMA B. JAFFE I Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's Pantheon 287

LEO J. O'DONOVAN, S.J. I Getting at the Rapture of Seeing: Ellsworth Kelly and Visual Experience 299

BARBARA SAUNDERS I Grammar(s) of Perception 305

JAY SCHULKIN I Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Sensibility 315

ROBERT CUMMINGS NEVILLE I Phenomenology and Pragmatism 323

GOD: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

SECTION SUMMARIES 337

WILLIAM J. RICHARDSON, S.J. I Psychoanalytic Praxis and the Truth of Pain 339

RICHARD KEARNEY I Poetics of a Possible God- Faith or Philosophy? 351

THOMAS NICKLES & GA YE McCOLLUM-NICKLES I James on Bootstraps, Evolution, and Life 361

DOMINIC BALESTRA I In-Between Science and Religion 377

GARRETT BARDEN I Thinking the Philosophy of Religion 385

THOMAS J. J. ALTIZER I Van Gogh's Eyes 393

STEVE FULLER I A Catholic Stance Toward Scientific Inquiry for the 21st Century 403

HEIDI BYRNES I The Dialogism of Meaning, The Discursive Embeddedness of Knowledge, The Colloquy of Being 411

W. NORRIS CLARKE, S.J. I The Creative Imagination 423

ERNEST G. McCLAIN I A Priestly View of Bible Arithmetic: Deity's Regulative Aesthetic Activity within Davidic Musicology 429

PATRICK A. HEELAN, S.J. I Afterword 445

BIBLIOGRAPHY: PATRICK A. HEELAN 461

Notes on Contributors 469

Index 477

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This collection was made possible in part by the institutional support generously provided by the Graduate School of Georgetown University as part of the research project, Hermeneutic and Phenomenological Approaches to the Philosophy of Science, directed by Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., William A. Gaston Professor of Philosophy. I am grateful to Dominic Balestra, chair of the Philosophy Department, together with the Deans of Fordham University for a course reduction from three courses to two in the Spring of2001 to ease some of the time demands involved with compiling, editing, and preparing the camera-ready copy for this volume. Joseph A. O'Hare, S.J., President of Fordham University, has warmest thanks for Feting the Jesuit scholar and priest celebrated by this Festschrift in May of 2001 - and hence in advance of the official publication.

Jean Ladriere's gracious consent to David B. Allison's translation of the encyclopredia entry on "Heelan, Patrick"- first published in the Encyclopedie Philosophique Universelle, III, Les Oeuvres Philosophiques, Dictionnaire, Tome 2: Philosophie occidentale: 1889-1990, pp. 3322-3323 -as well as permision granted from the Presses Universitaires de France, is here gratefully acknowledged. Likewise, permissions from the Niels Bohr Archiv to reproduce the drawings in Ragnar Fjelland, "The Copenhagen Interpretation" of Quantum Physics and Phenomenology (Fig. 1) and from CERN (Fig. 2) (CERN/PIO/RA 77-4) are acknowledged with gratitude. Permissions from the United States Capitol Historical Society, Yale University Art Gallery, and the National Gallery of Canada to reproduce John Trumbull's paintings in Irma B. Jaffe, Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's Pantheon (Figs. 1-8) are gratefully acknowledged as is permission from the Art Resource and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I also acknowledge with gratitude permission granted to reproduce Van Gogh's paintings in Babette E. Babich, Heidegger 's Truth and the Question of Aesthetics (Fig. 1 and Fig. 3) from the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam as well as the Baltimore Art Museum (Fig. 2). I honor with gratitude the contribution of the late Dr. Ursula Bemis, Buddhist nun, philosopher, and friend to Patrick A. Heelan and to the editor, who took the frontispiece photograph (p. v).

Book collections are not only comprised of the essays included but are also conjoined with an invisible but important domain of omissions - declined invitations and parallel or alternate collections that might have been but for incidental exclusions and the compiler's oversight. I express my deep thanks to those who, for a variety of reasons, were unable to accept the invitation to contribute to this collection. Their humane, kind, and creative responses to my queries cheered me in the task and reminded me of the project's broader value as a research resource, just as Ivan Illich, who himself shares the same Jahrgang with Patrick, took care to emphasize the importance of Heelan's work for his own thought in recent years. I note too, and always with special gratitude, Alasdair Macintyre, and I note the kind words of others such as Gerd Buchdahl, Peter Caws, Bas van Fraassen, Ronald Giere, Friedrich Rapp, and Elisabeth Straker. I owe a special tribute to RobertS. Cohen for his important support of this project in its early stages. I acknowledge the contributions offered by Evandro Agazzi, Adolf Griinbaum, Jean Salanskis, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsiicker which, solely for technical reasons, could not be included in the final volume. Many others expressed a kind of happy dismay d'escalier and I regret my fault if I failed to include those who might have been included if another editor, or better editorial perspective, had prevailed.

Heidi Byrnes deserves all praise for her extraordinary labors which yielded a second and very valued copy-editing of the volume.

I express my own and deepest personal thanks to David B. Allison, Richard Cobb-Stevens, and William J. Richardson, S.J .. And for being the kind of human being and scholar around whom a book of essays can come to such a philosophically diverse and wonderful constellation, I am grateful to Patrick A. Heelan, S.J.

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ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Photographs of Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., pp. v-vi and pp. xv-xvii, are from his personal collection and reproduced with his permission.

In: Babich, Heidegger's Truth and the Question of Aesthetics, pp. 251-264.

p. 267. Figure 1. Vincent van Gogh. A Pair of Shoes, Paris, 1886. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

p. 268. Figure 2. Vincent van Gogh. A Pair of Boots, Paris, 1887. The Baltimore Museum of Art. The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland. BMA 1950.302.

p. 269. Figure 3. Vincent van Gogh. A Pair of Leather Clogs, Aries, 1888. Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

p. 274. Figure 4. External approach. Temple of Apollo Epikurios, with protective tenting structure, at Bassae, Greece. Author's photograph, 1998.

p. 275. Figure 5. Internal/External View. Temple of Apollo Epikurios, at Bassae, Greece. Author's photograph, 1998.

In: Jaffe, Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's Pantheon, pp. 287-298.

p. 289: Top. Figure 1. John Trumbull. The Declaration of Independence. 1818. United States Capitol Rotunda. Courtesy of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

p. 289: Bottom. Figure 2. John Trumbull. The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga. 1821. United States Capitol Rotunda. Courtesy of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

p. 290: Top. Figure 3. John Trumbull. The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. 1820. United States Capitol Rotunda. Courtesy of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

p. 290: Bottom. Figure 4. John Trumbull. The Resignation of General Washington. 1824. United States Capitol Rotunda. Courtesy, U.S. Historical Society.

p. 291: Top. Figure 5. Pietro Santi Bartoli. (Engraving) Detail from the Column of Trajan. Rome, Italy. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

p. 291: Bottom. Figure 6. Benjamin West. The Death of General Wolfe. 1770. The National Gallery of Canada. Courtesy of The National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa.

p. 292: Tcop. Figure 7. Giotto. Lamentation Over the Body of Christ. 1305-06. Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy. Courtesy of Alisart/ Art Resource, NY.

p. 293: Bottom. Figure 8. John Trumbull. The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunkers Hill. 1786. Yale University Art Gallery. Courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery.

X

FROM: ENCYCLOPEDIE PHILOSOPH/QUE UNIVERSELLE

PATRICK HEELAN

Born in Dublin. Entered the Society of Jesus [Jesuit Order] in 1942. Awarded his Masters Degree in Mathematics by the National University of Ireland in 1948; [an Associate at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, 1948-]; received his Doctoral Degree in Geophysics from St. Louis University, Missouri, 1952; received his Doctoral Degree in Philosophy from the University ofLouvain [Leuven] in 1964. He worked at the Palmer Laboratory at Princeton University with Eugene Wigner from [1960-1962. He taught [theoretical physics] at University College, Dublin from 1964-1965, then taught [philosophy] at Fordham University in New York, and later at the State University ofNew York at Stony Brook where he [was] a Professor of Philosophy [till 1992; currently he is a Professor ofPhilosophy at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA]. At Stony Brook, he was Vice-President for Liberal Studies and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; [he was subsequently Executive Vice-President for the Main Campus at Georgetown University].

His works principally concern the philosophy of quantum physics as well as the structure of perceived space. The philosophical interpretation he gave for quantum mechanics led him to conceive of quantum logic (the non-classical behavior of proposi­tions in quantum mechanics), not as an indication of incompleteness, but as resulting from the contextual character of the descriptive propositions that belong to quantum mechanics. Quantum logic for him is "the general logic of context-dependent discourse."

- Jean Ladriere

QUANTUM MECHANICS AND OBJECTIVITY: A STUDY OF THE PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY OF WERNER HEISENBERG (1966)

It has practically become commonplace to say that the development of quantum mechanics has brought into question numerous long established concepts of classical physics. In the present work, Patrick Heelan analyzes one of these fundamental concepts, namely, that of objectivity in light of Heisenberg's work. One of the first steps he advances is to critique the principle of complementarity: in the context of this

xi

xii JEAN LADRIERE

critique the author shows, among other things, that psychophysical parallelism is an insufficient explanation for scientific knowledge. Then he proceeds to critique the theory of measurement, as developed by Heisenberg. The author points out that the disturbance of a quantum system by the process of measuring has nothing whatsoever to do with any limitation on our access to physical reality. He also shows that the presence of the observer's subjectivity is the same in classical physics as it is in quantum physics. The nature of the quantum object, however, is different, in classical physics one has an "idealized and normative object," while in quantum physics the object is an "individual instance of an idealized norm." Based on the analysis of the logical structures of these physical theories, Heelan concludes that physics rests on the articulation of two worlds: a world-for-us, as described by observational and operational concepts, and a world-for-things, as described by explanatory concepts.

This book is the revised edition of Heelan's doctoral thesis, which was presented at the University ofLouvain [Leuven] in 1964. At the end of the volume, the reader will find a useful lexicon of the scientific and philosophical terms employed.

- Marc Jager

SPACE-PERCEPTION AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (1983)

The present work develops the principles of a systematic philosophical theory, one inspired by phenomenology and hermeneutics; indeed it employs them concretely to lay out a vast problematic extending from aesthetics and the philosophy of science to the mind-body problem and cultural theory. What motivates this project is the notion that cognitive processes are context-dependent. The method adapted for studying these processes is thus one which is capable of deciphering the sense of the objects of knowledge, at the same time it reinstates those objects within the horizons of experience (both interior and exterior) on the basis of which they were initially constituted. Such a method is that of phenomenological hermeneutics.

The author sums up what is essentially his main position in three points: 1) The task of hermeneutics is to go "to the things themselves." This task is governed by a set of elements which constitute the "fore-structure of understanding." It follows that the course of the hermeneutic project has a certain character of circularity to it, this is not as much a vicious circle, however, as a back and forth process which, while always incomplete, is, as it were, magnetized by "the thing itself," which is brought forth and made manifest to our experience. 2) It must be acknowledged that there is an ontological primacy to perception: "Reality is exactly what is or could be, manifested through perceptual essences and profiles, understood as horizons of the world." Furthermore, perception is essentially hermeneutic. It follows that the contents of perception never have a "unique, definitive, complete, final, absolute, a-historical, or a-cultural" character. 3) Within the contemporary, debates in the philosophy of science, the author adopts a position that is neither that of "scientific realism" nor of"instrumentalism," but rather one of a "horizonal realism." Science clearly aims "to describe the elements and structures of reality." But the latter can often be "hidden to (theoretically and instrumentally) unassisted perception." Nonetheless, they do possess "authentic

PREFACE xiii

perceptual essences that can be rendered directly manifest in perception with the help of theoretically structured instruments serving as 'readable technologies'." Scientific knowledge should thus be understood as an extension of "unassisted" perception. A perceptual fact has an outer horizon "which separates it from the ground on which it appears," and an inner horizon "composed of a multiplicity of possible perceptual profiles organized by an invariant essence." The perceiving subject can "bring forth a representative sample of the profiles in question," occasionally by making use of certain technological processes, which are themselves subject to interpretation in terms of theoretical representations. The theoretical entities described in these representations are not "simply detected thanks to an inferential operation, but rather, they are directly perceived." It follows from this that the correspondence between the "manifest image" and the "scientific image" is not done one-to-one, but by a "many-to-one or one-to­many application between contextually defined perceptual objects within contexts that are mutually incompatible but complementary." This should not, however, be understood as a form of conventionalism, nor as a form of "cultural relativism." Pre­comprehension, which guides interpretation imposes strict limits to the descriptive categories which can be used and to the manner in which they can be linked to appropriate empirical objects.

The author applies his hermeneutic principles to the study of visual perception. (In fact this question is treated in the first part of the book. while the general theory is dealt with in the second part. This mode of presentation is justified by "rhetorical or pedagogical" reasons). Heelan shows (inspired in part by RudolfLiineburg's model of spatial perception) that many visual phenomena have the characteristics of a hyperbolic space, and that these structures of visual space have an essential character. (His very detailed argumentation lays stress on an analysis of normal visual perception, on the study of perceptual illusions, and on. a historical study of pictorial spaces.) Euclidean structure is the product of a "technical and scientific praxis" which is inscribed within common usage across a broad variety of artifacts. Like any theoretical construct, Euclidean space can be directly perceived "provided that an appropriate readable technology exists." In this way, it becomes an "essential structure of the everyday world."

The method Heelan engages with regard to the particular problem [of visual space] is again used in the second part of the book to construct a general theory of perception (interpreted in a hermeneutical sense, always in conformity with Heelan's fundamental positions), and on this basis, to elaborate a philosophy of science that gets articulated according to the essentially phenomenological, thesis of "horizonal realism." The author's epistemological position permits him to develop a radical critique of"identity theories," which tend "in principle to reduce mental phenomena, such as acts of perception to brain states or to material states, without residue." Such a position also allows him, with regard to the problem posed by the interpretation of the history of science, to construct a model of rational progress that includes a "linear part" and a "dialectical part." The essential characteristic of the dialectical structure of the model is that it is represented by a nondistributive lattice. The interpretation proposed for the history of science is generalized within a theory of cultural diversity and cultural

xiv JEAN LADRIERE

dynamics, where the same formal structure is to be found, namely, that of quantum logic. But quantum theory is only one particular case - albeit, strictly speaking, it is a most illustrative case .... of a "context dependent discourse." The entire argumentation developed by Heelan thus leads him to the following "provisional conclusion": "In the degree to which reality is grounded on the general conditions of the possibility of perception, the structure of this ground (very likely) has the historical and dialectical structure of a nondistributive quantum lattice."

-Jean Ladriere

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity. A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg. The Hague, Nijhoff, 1965.

-"Horizon, Objectivity, and Reality in the Physical Sciences," International Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 1967, pp. 375-412.

- "Quantum Logic and Classical Logic: Their Respective Roles," Synthese, 22 (1970): 3-33. Reprinted in R.S. Cohen & M. Wartofsky, eds., Logical and Epistemological Studies in Contemporary Physics. Dordrecht/Boston, D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1974, pp. 318-349.

-"Toward a New Analysis of the Pictorial Space ofVincent Van Gogh," Art Bulletin, 54, 1972, pp. 478-492. -"Towards a Hermeneutic of Natural Science" and "Towards a Hermeneutic of Natural Science: A Reply

to Wolfe Mays," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 3,1972, pp. 252-260 & 277-283.

-"Hermeneutics of Experimental Science in the Context of the Life World," in D. Ihde & R. Zaner, eds., Interdisciplinary Phenomenal ogy. The Hague, Nijhoff, 1975, pp. 7-50,

-"Quantum Relativity and the Cosmic Observer," in W. Yourgrau & A. Breck, eds., Cosmology, History and Theology. New York, Plenum, 1977.

-"Music as a Basic Metaphor and Deep Structure in Plato and in Ancient Culture," Journal of the Social and Biological Structures 2, 1979, pp. 279-291.

- Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science. Berkeley/Los Angeles (Cal.), University of California Press, 1983.

- Translated by David B. Allison

Standing: Alex Bradley, Esther [Heelan] Bradley, M.D., Louis J. Heelan, Esq.t Seated: Matthew Henry Heelan, Esq., Patrick Aidan Heelan, S.J., Pauline Beirens Heelan. July, 1958.

Patrick Aidan Heelan as cox -far left, looking right. River Liffey, Islandbridge, Dublin, Ireland. Summer, 1942.

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St. Louis University, early 1950. Driving the farm jeep, St. Louis, 1950's.

Father Heelan, dancing with one of the many Crowther cousins he has married over the years. Circa 1970.

xvi

From left to right: David B. Allison (seated), Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., Babette E. Babich, William J. Richardson, S.J., Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J. , Georgetown University, 1995.

Prof. Patrick A. Heelan with Prof. Karl Pribram, following a class discussion on science and religion. Georgetown University, Spring semester, 2001.

XVII