Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Space, Time, and Samuel Alexander

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09608788.2012.734776

1469-3526

Emily Thomas,

Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life

Abstract Super-substantivalism is the thesis that space is identical to matter; it is currently under discussion – see Sklar (1977, 221–4), Earman (1989, 115–6) and Schaffer (2009) – in contemporary philosophy of physics and metaphysics. Given this current interest, it is worth investigating the thesis in the history of philosophy. This paper examines the super-substantivalism of Samuel Alexander, an early twentieth century metaphysician primarily associated with (the movement now known as) British Emergentism. Alexander argues that spacetime is ontologically fundamental and it gives rise to an ontological hierarchy of emergence, involving novel properties such as matter, life and mind. Alexander's super-substantivalism is interesting not just because of its historical importance but also because Alexander unusually attempts to explain why spacetime is identical to matter. This paper carefully unpacks that explanation and shows how Alexander is best read as conceiving of spacetime as a Spinozistic substance, worked upon by evolution. Keywords: Samuel Alexandersuper-substantivalismevolutionary emergentism Notes 1For super-substantivalism in Plato and Descartes, see Graves (Conceptual Foundations of Contemporary Relativity Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971)); for super-substantivalism in Spinoza, see Bennett (A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 89–92). Of the contemporary super-substantivalists, Schaffer ('Spacetime as the One Substance', Philosophical Studies, 145 (2009): 131–48) appears to regard Alexander's system as a direct predecessor of his own. 2Alexander had a significant influence on Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1929)), who founded the American school of process philosophy – see his Process and Reality (1929) – which includes Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Emmet reports Alexander saying modestly of his work that he 'had but rung the bell' for Whitehead (Emmet, 'Time is the Mind of Space', Philosophy, 25 (1950): 22–34). For more on American process philosophy, see Rescher (Process Metaphysics (USA: State University of New York Press, 1996)). 3See the very brief treatments in Stephan ('Emergence – a systematic view of its historical facets', in Emergence or Reduction? edited by Ansgar Beckerman, Hans Flohr and Jaegwon Kim (Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 1992), 30–2), McLaughlin ('The rise and fall of British Emergentism', in Emergence or Reduction? edited by Ansgar Beckerman, Hans Flohr and Jaegwon Kim (Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 1992), 66) and O'Connor and Wong ('Emergent Properties', in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta 2012); a fuller investigation is Gillet ('Samuel Alexander's Emergentism: Or, Higher Causation for Physicalists', Synthese, 153 (2006): 261–96) and an older discussion is Emmet (Citation1950). More general studies of Alexander can be found in McCarthy (The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander (USA: Macmillan & Co, Ltd, 1948)), Stiernotte (God and Space-Time (USA: Philosophy Library, 1954)), Brettschneider (The Philosophy of Samuel Alexander (USA: Humanities Press, 1964)) and Weinstein (Unity and Variety in the Philosophy of Samuel Alexander (USA: Purdue University Press, 1984)). 4For example, in his vintage history of philosophy, Passmore writes that while Space, Time, and Deity has the new realism 'behind it', it is 'by no means unaffected by Bradley and Bosanquet' (Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy (Great Britain: Gerald Duckwork & Co, Ltd, 1957) 267). In his rather more recent history, Mander goes so far as to describe the work of Alexander (and Whitehead) as a kind of idealism, albeit one of a very different stamp (Mander, British Idealism (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2011) 530). The same reading is found in more Alexander-centric scholars. For example, Brettschneider rages, 'He [Alexander] acts like Bradley and thinks like Bradley, but refuses to acknowledge the prepotency of the idealistic metaphysics in his Space-Time universe' (Brettschneider, Citation1964, 168–170). See also Weinstein (Citation1984, 19) and Murphy ('Alexander's Metaphysic of Space-Time' [multiple parts], The Monist, 38 (1927): 358). 5For a fuller explanation of the transition from considering space and time independently to considering them as combined in the spacetime manifold, see Einstein (The World As I See It (Great Britain: John Lane, 1935), 179–81), who explains how the transition came about as a result of developments in electrodynamics and the relativity of simultaneity. 6The clearest expression of this claim can be found in Spinoza's earlier work 'Cogitata Metaphysica' (I:4), included as an appendix to The Principles of Descartes' Philosophy (1663). See also the main body of Spinoza's The Principles of Descartes' Philosophy (Ip19). 7In his Physics, Aristotle provides an extended discussion of the relationship between change and time, concluding that 'every change and everything that moves is in time' (Aristotle, IV, 'Physics', in The Complete Works of Aristotle Vol. I, edited by Jonathan Barnes (USA: Princeton University Press, 1995) 222b30). This idea is at the heart of rationalist denials that God is in time: God is immutable, and if time is change, then God must be timeless. Hegel identifies time and change, or – to use his term – becoming. 'But it is not in time that everything comes to be and passes away, rather time itself is the becoming, this coming-to-be and passing away' (Hegel, Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences – Hegel's Philosophy of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) II, §258). 8Alexander does not describe his metaphysics in terms of A or B theory, and his views on the issue are unclear. In Space, Time, and Deity Alexander frequently appears to be advancing an A theory; for example, he describes the 'displacement' of the present to the past (Alexander, 1920i, 61). And yet, in an undated manuscript 'The Reality of the Past' – held at John Rylands University Library (Manchester), reference ALEX/A/2/2/42 – Alexander firmly states that the notions of past, present and future only have meaning to our minds, not to the external world. 9In a striking case of blackened pots, Alexander adds that Bergson's description of the relationship between time and space is 'the most important and difficult doctrine of his philosophy and the most obscure' (Alexander, 1920i, 36). 10In classic style, Bergson continues, 'Real duration is that duration which gnaws on things, and leaves on them the mark of its tooth … everything is in time, everything changes inwardly … reality appears as a ceaseless upspringing of something new' (Bergson, Citation1920, 48–9). 11In his Principles of Philosophy (1644), Descartes claims that spatial extension is the attribute of material substance. For Descartes, continuous spatial extension in three dimensions simply is space, so Descartes identifies space and matter (II:10). As we saw above, Spinoza holds that insofar as God is extension, he is homogeneous: 'matter is the same everywhere, and its parts cannot be distinguished from one the other' (EIp15n). In the Encyclopaedia Hegel also claims that space is 'absolutely continuous … and contains no specific difference within itself' (Hegel, II, §253). 12Held at John Rylands University Library, reference ALEX/A/1/1/37/2. 13For Bradley's arguments against the reality of space, time and change, see his Appearance and Reality (1893), Chapters 4 and 5. 14Brief discussions can be found in Stephan (Citation1992, 30–2) and McLaughlin (1992, 66); Gillet (Citation2006) is more comprehensive. 15Alexander and Morgan corresponded frequently. Alexander explains that he has even chosen the term 'emergent' after the example of Morgan (Alexander, 1921ii, 14). In 1921, Alexander cites Morgan's Instinct and Experience (1912) but the full expression of Morgan's emergentism can be found in his later Emergent Evolution (1923). Morgan begins this latter book with a critique of Alexander's emergentism. 16Emmet concurs with this reading of Alexander and attacks this strategy, objecting that when giving a general worldview in terms of an analogy drawn from a special field – in this case the psycho-physical relation – it is necessary that the initial relation from which the analogy is drawn should itself be clearly understood (Emmet, Citation1950, 226). She argues that this relation is notoriously unclear, and worries that consequently Alexander's 'whole gigantic effort is an attempt to explain obscurum per obscurius' (Emmet, Citation1950, 227). 17For example, Alexander defines life as an 'emergent quality taken on by a complex of physico-chemical processes belonging to the material level, these processes taking place in a structure of a certain order of complexity' (Alexander, 1920ii, 61). The conscious mind further emerges – as 'something new, a fresh creation' – out of the living organism once the neural processes reach a certain level of development or complexity (Alexander, 1920ii, 7). 18Spencer certainly never gave it up in favour of natural selection. In his Darwin and Hegel, the evolutionary idealist D. G. Ritchie sarcastically suggests that Spencer attempts to 'patent' evolution, and points out that natural selection only appears as a footnote in Spencer's First Principles, a move 'intended to minimise the importance of Darwin's discovery' (Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1893) 55). Despite Darwin, Spencer's characterization of evolution did persist. For example, in Morgan's 'The Philosophy of Evolution', he writes: 'The root ideas of the conception of evolution are, first differentiation, and secondly the interaction of the differentiated products' (Morgan, 'The Philosophy of Evolution', Monist, VIII (1898): 481–501). In this paper Morgan discusses both Spencer's and Darwin's theories of evolution; he finds Spencer's 'root idea' perfectly compatible with natural selection (indeed, if my reading of Alexander's notion of nisus below is correct, so does Alexander). It can also arguably be found in Bergson: becoming, via evolution, is the source of infinite variety (Bergson, Citation1920, 320). 19Similar related complaints can be found in McCarthy (1948, 107) and Hicks ('Review of Alexander's Space, Time, and Deity', The Hibbert Journal, XIX (1920): 573–81, 106). 20Bergson says similarly of time: 'It is the foundation of our being … the very substance of the world in which we live' (Bergson, Citation1920, 41). 21For example, Stiernotte understands nisus as 'creative force' (Stiernotte, Citation1954, 285). In contrast, Brettschneider argues that nisus is a Bradleyian principle of coherence (Brettschneider, Citation1964, 154). Differently again, Emmet describes the nisus as a 'creative tendency' for complexes of one order to combine with each under suitable conditions to form complexes of the next order (Emmet, Citation1950, 232). She adds that nisus arises in Alexander's system because he assumes 'the mere fact of succession necessarily means creative advance' (Emmet, Citation1950, 232). Although she makes no mention of evolution, Emmet's reading comes closest to my own. 22Or three, if you count the rather suggestive line in a letter dated 10 April 1910 from Alexander to Bradley, held in the Merton College Archives (Oxford). In the context of explaining how mental process is continuous with the movement of the body, Alexander adds 'I am constantly using the notion at the bottom of natural selection'. Although the comment is left unexplained, what notion could Alexander be referring to, if not Darwinian striving? The implication is that even then Alexander was thinking of emergence in evolutionary terms. 23Letter dated 28 April 1922, manuscript number Alex/A/1/1/33/17, held at John Rylands University Library. In the same letter, Bradley adds 'If you are further led to hold that this "nisus" to an end is also actually realised and accomplished and is not merely "in progress" – you have on your hands absolutely all the difficulties of Absolutism.' Happily for Alexander, he is not led to this further position and its concomitant difficulties. 24Indeed, it is possible that Alexander choose the term 'nisus' after the example of Bosanquet; if so, this would provide yet another example of Alexander's neo-Hegelian leanings. 25Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the Metaphysics of British Hegelianism conference (Cambridge, April 2012) and the British Society for the History of Philosophy Annual Conference (Dundee, May 2012). I would like to thank the participants of both conferences, and two anonymous referees for this journal, for their helpful comments on this paper. I owe further, special thanks to Tim Crane and Bill Mander.