Mind Versus Matter:

Sociology versus the Natural Sciences

Mark P. A. Ciotola

4. The Beginnings of Modern Philosophy And Sociology

The beginnings of the contemporary era of philosophy can perhaps be traced to "the man who came to be known as the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes." (Clark, p. 110) Descartes was a leading figure in natural science (giving us Cartesian coordinates i.e. "the graph") as well as being a leading philosopher.

Descartes continued the tradition of Aristotle that "a human body is essentially a composite of soul and body." Further, "everything, in Descartes's system, is to be explained in terms of this dualism of mind and matter." Descartes even took on the predecessors of sociobiology with his assertion of animals as machines, hence part of the realm of matter. (Kenny, p. 113).

5. Development of The Two Cultures

At one time, there was great overlap, one could even say union, between people practicing natural and "inner" philosophy e.g. Descartes, Spinoza. In the 1600s and 1700s, in marked contrast with the modern era, many leading thinkers of social philosophy were also leading thinkers in natural philosophy, or were intimately acquainted with such thinkers. Even Isaac Newton was a well-considered biblical scholar. Philosopher Spinoza attempted to use math and geometry to analyze social phenomena and reality while earning his livelihood form lens polishing (a natural-science-oriented occupation in those days)

This may have been due the motives for studying philosophy. The 1600s and 1700s were a time of great religious liberation. In England, North America, and parts of northern Europe, individuals gained the right to examine religious works for themselves in order to draw their own conclusions. (Merton, pp. 628-639) Indeed, many felt that such examinations were not merely a fanciful option, but their religious duty. Under Puritanism in England and Pietism in Germany this duty of quest was undertaken with the same intensity by intelligent, and learned individuals as the quest for the next IPO-worthy piece of software or computer equipment is taken in Silicon Valley. Religious freedom in those times was not a rejection of God and religion but rather a rejection of Church dogma.

These philosophers considered everything to be a creation of the Christian God and therefore requiring study, "for in Nature is the manifestations of His power, then nothing in Nature is too mean for scientific study. [citing John Ray, Wisdom of God, 130 ff] The universe and the insect, the macrocosm and the microcosm alike, are indications of ‘divine Reason, running like a Golden Vein, through the whole leaden Mine of Brutal Nature.'" (Merton, 1968, p. 635). Hence a social philosopher felt some duty to become a natural philosopher and vice versa.

In the United States, this type of unity can be seen in individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, who both participated in the formation of the United States, wrote on both religion and philosophy and was a leading scientist in the field of electricity.

This unity gradually fell apart as scientists became more specialized, and as perhaps as science became of more lucrative profession. One could argue that the social thinkers and philosophers of the 1600s and 1700s would no longer be sufficiently attracted to the science of our modern era, where graduate students often spend the better part of a whole decade learning how to build and operate a single instrument. A current news story on the decrease of domestic students entering the sciences quoted a social science major as saying he wasn’t interested in science because it was not abstract enough. (source unknown) Likewise, as social philosophy developed into social science, motives for those entering the social philosophers eventually became to solve social problems rather than individual or religious enlightenment.

References

1. S. Clark, "Ancient Philosophy", Oxford History of Western Philosophy, A. Kenny, ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994.

2. A. Kenny, "Descartes to Kant", Oxford History of Western Philosophy, A. Kenny, ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994.

3. R. K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, New York, 1968.