Nicholas Maxwell

A fully micro realistic, propensity version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which fundamental physical entities—neither particles nor fields—have physical characteristics which determine probabilistically how they interact with one another (rather than with measuring instruments). The version of quantum “smearon” theory proposed here does not modify the equations of orthodox quantum theory: rather it gives a radically new interpretation to these equations. It is argued that (i) there are strong general reasons for preferrring quantum “smearon” theory to orthodox quantum theory; (ii) the proposed change in physical interpretation leads quantum “smearon” theory to make experimental predictions subtly different from those of orthodox quantum theory. Some possible crucial experiments are considered.

What sort of entities are electrons, photons and atoms given their wave-like and particle-like properties? Is nature fundamentally deterministic or probabilistic? Orthodox quantum theory (OQT) evades answering these two basic questions by being a theory about the results of performing measurements on quantum systems. But this evasion results in OQT being a seriously defective theory. A rival, somewhat ignored strategy is to conjecture that the quantum domain is fundamentally probabilistic. This means quantum entities, interacting with one another probabilistically, must differ radically from the entities of deterministic classical physics, the classical wave or particle. It becomes possible to conceive of quantum entities as a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the “propensiton”, neither wave nor particle. A fully micro realistic, testable rival to OQT results.

In Praise of Natural Philosophy argues for a transformation of both science and philosophy, so that these two distinct domains of thought become one: natural philosophy. This in turn has far-reaching consequences for the whole academic enterprise. It transpires that universities need to be reorganized so that they become devoted to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means – as opposed to just acquiring knowledge. Modern science began as natural philosophy. What today we call science and philosophy, in Newton's time formed one integrated enterprise: to improve our knowledge and understanding of the universe. Profound discoveries were made. And then natural philosophy died. It split into science and philosophy. But the two fragments are defective shadows of the glorious unified endeavour of natural philosophy. Rigour, sheer intellectual good sense, and decisive argument demand that we put the two together again, and rediscover the immense merits of the integrated enterprise of natural philosophy. This requires an intellectual revolution, with profound consequences for how we understand the universe, do both science and philosophy, and tackle global problems. A comprehensive addition to discussions about the purposes of academia, In Praise of Natural Philosophy has dramatic implications for the fate of our world.

The post-Newtonian view that evidence alone decides what theories are accepted in science fails to solve Hume’s problem of induction. But this Newtonian view is untenable in any case: in persistently accepting unified theories only, and ignoring endlessly many disunified rivals that fit available phenomena even better, physics thereby makes an implicit metaphysical assumption: the universe is such that all disunified theories are false. That refutes the post-Newtonian view of science. It is thus not surprising that the Newtonian view fails to solve Hume’s problem. But does aim-oriented empiricism do better? It does; it solves the problem. First, in acknowledging that physics makes a substantial, metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe, aim-oriented empiricism is more rigorous intellectually than all versions of its post-Newtonian rival. Secondly, the hierarchical structure of aim-oriented empiricism provides the best means for developing metaphysical assumptions of science that represent the nature of the universe in increasingly accurate and truth-like ways. Third, it is shown that Hume’s argument that there cannot be necessary connections between successive states of affairs is false. What exists now may well determine necessarily what exists in the future. We are justified in accepting the results of science.

A major consideration in favour of aim-oriented empiricism is that it has fruitful implications for science. This chapter concentrates on fruitful implications for physics. As I have already indicated, aim-oriented empiricism facilitates the improvement of the metaphysical assumptions of physics. Specific metaphysical assumptions made by physics, whether explicitly acknowledged or not, influence the discovery, assessment, and interpretation of physical theories. In facilitating the improvement of the metaphysical assumptions of physics, aim-oriented empiricism is thus able to improve the discovery, assessment, and interpretation of physical theories, and thus improve physics itself, and contribute to its progress. It is argued that the historical failure to put aim-oriented empiricism into practice—the failure to hold metaphysical theses associated with physics conjecturally, so that they became open to improvement—substantially delayed acceptance of Newtonian theory, Maxwellian electrodynamics, and still delays discovery of an acceptable version of quantum theory, nearly 100 years after Heisenberg and Schrödinger created the unsatisfactory version of the theory we have today, orthodox quantum theory. Finally, it is argued that Einstein exploited the rational, if fallible, method of discovery of aim-oriented empiricism in discovering both special and general relativity. Subsequently, Einstein misapplied his method of discovery, and met with failure.

Universities have long been dominated by a philosophy of inquiry that may be called knowledge-inquiry. This holds that, in order to do justice to the humanitarian aim of helping to promote human welfare, academic inquiry must, in the first instance, seek knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help promote human welfare. But this philosophy of knowledge-inquiry is an intellectual and humanitarian disaster. It violates three of the four most elementary rules of rational problem solving conceivable, and as a result fails to give priority to the task of helping humanity resolve the climate crisis and other global problems that need to be resolved if we are to make progress to a better world—one in which there is peace, democracy, justice, liberty, and sustainable prosperity, for all. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, so that academic inquiry puts all four rules of rational problem solving into practice, and becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards a better world. Knowledge-inquiry needs to become wisdom-inquiry—a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity create a wiser world.

This chapter begins with a resumé of the argument of the book. It then discusses three global problems we must solve if we are to have any hope of a decent future: the climate crisis, the nature crisis—the crisis, that is, of the degradation or destruction of natural habitats, such as tropical rain forests, the catastrophic loss of wild life, and the impending mass extinction of species—and third, the menace posed by nuclear weapons ready for launching at the touch of a button. The extent to which the philosophical, scientific, academic and educational revolution that has been argued for in this book would, if it were to occur, help solve these urgent global problems, is considered.

How can the world as it appears to us, the world we live in, exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? That is our fundamental problem, encompassing all others of science, thought, and life. Academic philosophy ought to have developed as the discipline that keeps alive imaginative and critical thinking about this problem—about how it interacts with more particular and specialised problems—in universities, and in cultural and social life. If philosophy had developed in this way, as Critical Fundamentalism, it would have noticed, and highlighted long ago the bad philosophy dominating academic inquiry. But philosophy has not, and still does not, put Critical Fundamentalism into practice. Modern philosophy began well: Descartes’ Cartesian dualism is an early attempt at solving our fundamental problem. But then an extraordinary thing happened. Philosophers after Descartes rejected Cartesian dualism but, instead of returning to the problem that Descartes tried, and failed, to solve, namely our fundamental problem, they continued to struggle with problems generated by Cartesian dualism, the very doctrine they had rejected! That is the post-Cartesian blunder; it had a disastrous impact on subsequent academic philosophy. It blinded academic philosophers to the damaging irrationality of knowledge-inquiry.

Modern science began as natural philosophy. Two ingredients are essential: first, the adoption of the metaphysical conjecture that the universe is such that phenomena obey mathematically precise laws; and secondly, a scrupulous concern to assess theories by means of observation and experiment (in addition to compatibility with the metaphysical conjecture). Both elements are to be found in the crucial work of Kepler and Galileo; and they are to be found in the first edition of Newton’s Principia too. But then, in response to criticism, Newton removed every hint of the conjectural and metaphysical from subsequent editions, and claimed dishonestly to have derived everything from phenomena by induction. As a result of Newton’s immense prestige, scientists after Newton came to take for granted versions of his inductivist conception of science. As a consequence, a wedge was driven between science and philosophy, to the detriment of both. That is the post-Newtonian blunder. Never corrected, it has devastatingly trivialized subsequent philosophy, in depriving it of contact with science and the world. We need to correct the post-Newtonian blunder, acknowledge that all versions of the Newtonian conception of science are untenable, implement aim-oriented empiricism, and transform science so that it becomes natural philosophy.

The philosophes of the eighteenth century French Enlightenment made a profound discovery. We can learn from scientific progress how to make social progress towards an enlightened world. But, in developing this idea, the philosophes blundered. They should have, first, generalized the progress-achieving methods of science, and then got the resulting methods into social life so that social progress might be made towards an enlightened world with some of the success achieved by science in making progress in knowledge. This would have involved developing social inquiry as social methodology, or social philosophy. But the philosophes and their successors proceeded quite differently. They applied the progress-achieving methods of science, not directly to social life, but to improving knowledge about social life—to developing social inquiry as social science. That is the post-Enlightenment blunder. Unacknowledged and uncorrected, it led universities in the twentieth century to devote themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. Correct the blunder, and it becomes apparent we need a revolution in universities so that their basic task becomes to seek and promote wisdom, and humanity comes to have what it so urgently needs, institutions of learning rationally devoted to helping us learn how to make progress towards a better world.

Why has the damagingly irrational character of universities implementing knowledge-inquiry not been noticed and corrected? Academic philosophy, should have noticed and highlighted this disastrous situation long ago. It has not because of the scandalously dysfunctional state of the discipline. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academic philosophy. Once upon a time, philosophy was immensely significant and fruitful. It created modern science and, in doing so, transformed our knowledge of the universe and the path of human history. But subsequently, philosophy made three monumental intellectual blunders which, never put right, are responsible for the disastrously trivial, dysfunctional character of philosophy today. Correct these blunders along lines discussed in Chaps. 3–7, and Critical Fundamentalism emerges, a new, extraordinarily fruitful kind of philosophy that pursues and promotes imaginative and critical thinking about our most urgent and fundamental problems of thought and life. The vital need for wisdom-inquiry becomes apparent. There are fruitful implications for philosophy, for physics, for natural science, for social science, for education, for academic inquiry, for personal and social life, for our capacity to solve global problems, and thus make progress towards a good, civilized world.

According to Karl Popper, science cannot verify its theories empirically, but it can falsify them, and that suffices to account for scientific progress. For Popper, a law or theory remains a pure conjecture, probability equal to zero, however massively corroborated empirically it may be. But it does just seem to be the case that science does verify empirically laws and theories. We trust our lives to such verifications when we fly in aeroplanes, cross bridges and take modern medicines. We can do some justice to this apparent capacity of science to verify if we make a number of improvements to Popper’s philosophy of science. The key step is to recognize that physics, in accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a big metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe. The outcome is a conception of scientific method which facilitates the criticism and improvement of metaphysical assumptions of physics. This view provides, not verification, but a perfect simulacrum of verification indistinguishable from the real thing.

Two components of all that I argued for in my three papers of 1966 and 1968 had an immense impact on subsequent philosophy, not via my publications, but via subsequent publications of others. As a result, my work was ignored and forgotten. The outcome was that the overall theme of my three papers has been ignored by subsequent philosophy, and still is ignored, to the detriment of work on the mind-body problem and the philosophy of physics up to 2017, as I reveal in this chapter. First, my refutation of Hume on causation was taken up by others, but in what I can only regard as a debased form, in that this work on causation and physical essentialism appeals to a dubious notion of “natural necessity” and not to logical or analytic necessity, which is what I employ in my 1968 paper. Despite inspiring some of this subsequent work, my 1968 paper has been ignored and forgotten. Second, my argument that physics cannot predict experiential facts such as “I see a red rose” had an enormous impact via its exposition by Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson in papers published eight and twenty years after mine. The result was that my earlier work was ignored – and still is ignored. In this chapter I discuss recent contributions to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on topics related to the mind-body problem, and show that aspects of my work of 1966 and 1968 are still ignored, to the detriment of work in this field. I conclude by giving a brief account of more recent work of mine on the mind-body problem and the more general human world/physical universe problem, also ignored by the main body of work in this field in philosophy.

The first phase of my work on the metaphysics of science resulted in an MA thesis that was completed in 1965, and three papers extracted from the thesis published in 1966 and 1968. These papers tackled the problem of how to reconcile the world as depicted by physics with the world of common sense – the world as we experience it. A key idea is that physics is concerned only with a highly specialized aspect of all that there is, the causally efficacious aspect. I argued in one paper that Hume was wrong to deny that necessary connections cannot exist between successive states of affairs. On the contrary, we can interpret physics in such a way that it may, one day, specify what exists at one instant that necessitates what exists subsequently, necessity here having all the force of logical or analytic necessity. Given that physics is concerned only with this highly specialized aspect of everything – the causally efficacious aspect – we should not be surprised that other aspects exist about which physics says nothing. Such aspects exist – the experiential aspects of things, both perceptual features of things external to us, and mental aspects of brain processes going on inside our heads. In order to know about the experiential aspects of things – colours, sounds, smells – we need to have had, at some stage in our lives, experiences of these things. No special sort of experience is required, however, in order to understand physics. This means physics cannot predict the experiential. But physics does not need to predict the experiential in order to carry through its predictive and explanatory tasks. Since physics is specifically designed to avoid referring to the experiential, its failure to do so provides no grounds whatsoever for holding that the experiential does not really exist or, if it does exist, it is inherently inexplicable. All this goes some way towards solving the philosophical part of the mind-body problem.

In this final chapter I say something about what I take to be the broader implications and significance of aim-oriented empiricism: the urgent need to bring about a revolution in academic inquiry. The issues go back to the eighteenth century Enlightenment. The basic idea of the philosophes of the French Enlightenment especially, was that humanity can learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. Unfortunately, in seeking to implement this profoundly important idea, the philosophes made three disastrous intellectual blunders, and these blunders are still built into academia today. One of these blunders concerns science: the philosophes failed to construe science in aim-oriented empiricist terms. As a result of our failure to correct the three blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment, academia as it exists today is damagingly irrational in a structural fashion when judged from the standpoint of helping us make progress towards a good, enlightened, civilized world. Academia devotes itself to the pursuit of knowledge and fails to give priority to the vital intellectual tasks of articulating our problems of living, including our grave global problems, and proposing and criticizing possible solutions – possible actions. It fails to give priority to the vital task of intelligently conducted public education about what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. We have betrayed the profound Enlightenment idea in failing to correct the blunders inherent in the version that has come down to us from the eighteenth century. As a result, humanity fails to learn how to resolve global conflicts and problems that, at present, threaten our future. I have published work on this issue for over 40 years but, despite the fact that my work has met with critical acclaim, it has been ignored by most philosophers. This neglect follows on from neglect of my crucial earlier work on the metaphysics of science. I conclude with an indication of the changes we need to make to academia as it exists today to create the kind of rigorous institutions of learning we so urgently need.

In this chapter I outline the second wave of my work on the metaphysics of science. Physics only ever accepts unified theories. This means, I realized, that physics makes a big, influential, highly problematic metaphysical assumption about the nature of the universe: it has some kind of underlying unity. Precisely because this assumption is influential and problematic – no more than a conjecture – it is vital that it is made explicit and critically assessed as an integral part of physics itself, in an attempt to improve it. We need, I came to realize, a new kind of science which represents the metaphysical presuppositions of physics in the form of a hierarchy of assumptions, and actively seeks to improve the most substantial and problematic of these assumptions, low down in the hierarchy, as an integral part of physics itself. This new conception of science – aim-oriented empiricism – puts physics and metaphysics together to recreate natural philosophy. Major, outstanding problems in the philosophy of science, including the problem of induction, are solved by this new conception of science. It has revolutionary implications for research in the metaphysics of science. I spell out twenty implications this new conception of science has for research in the metaphysics of science.

In this chapter I discuss in detail 31 works on the metaphysics of science by 28 authors published between the years 2000 and 2017. Just one of these authors refers to my earlier work on the metaphysics of science in four footnotes but otherwise ignores most of what I have to say. The other 27 authors ignore my earlier work entirely. I show how this neglect has a detrimental impact on this body of work in the metaphysics of science, to a greater or lesser extent. I conclude by indicating the very fruitful implications the view of science I advocate, aim-oriented empiricism, has for research on the metaphysics of science.

At present knowledge-inquiry dominates academic inquiry, with some elements of social science and the humanities being influenced by Romantic ideals. Evidence that this is indeed the case comes from various aspects of the academic enterprise. A number of factors, such as careers and specialization, keep these traditional conceptions and ideals in place. In recent decades some changes that have taken place in universities can be regarded as steps away from knowledge-inquiry towards wisdom-inquiry. Nevertheless, academia is still a long way from accepting and implementing wisdom-inquiry. We still need urgently an academic revolution, from knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry.

We need to get clear about the implications for academic inquiry of correcting the blunders we have inherited from the 18th century Enlightenment—so that the basic Enlightenment idea can be put properly into practice. We take two conceptions of scientific method in turn. First, we adopt Karl Popper’s falsificationist conception of scientific method. When this is generalized and applied to the task of helping to solve problems of living, including global problems, the implications for academia as a whole are that problems of living are put at the heart of academic inquiry, the basic intellectual tasks being to improve articulation of problems of living, and to propose and critically assess possible solutions—possible social, political actions. The scientific pursuit of knowledge would be important but secondary. Public education about what our problems are, and what we need to do to solve them, becomes a basic objective of academia. Second, we adopt the much improved conception of scientific method of aim-oriented empiricism, which recognizes that problematic metaphysical assumptions are inherent in the aims of science, and provides a meta-methodology for the improvement of the aims and methods of science as science proceeds. This is generalized so that it applies fruitfully, potentially, to all worthwhile human endeavours with problematic aims. It is then the task of social inquiry and the humanities to get this aims-and-methods improving meta-methodology into the fabric of social life, into all our other social endeavours besides science. Social inquiry becomes social methodology, not primarily social science. The basic aim of academic inquiry becomes, not just to acquire knowledge, but rather to seek and promote wisdom—wisdom being construed as the capacity, active endeavour and desire to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom thus conceived including knowledge and technological know-how, but much besides.

We have before us two rival kinds and conceptions of academic inquiry, which may be called knowledge-inquiry and wisdom-inquiry. The first of these is what we have inherited from the past. It is the outcome of the blunders of the 18th century Enlightenment. It still dominates academia today. The basic idea is that knowledge must first be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems. Wisdom-inquiry emerges as a result of correcting the blunders of the traditional Enlightenment, built into knowledge-inquiry. Natural science would put aim-oriented empiricism into scientific practice. Social inquiry and the humanities would seek to help humanity put the generalized version of aim-oriented empiricism into almost every aspect of social life. The outcome of transforming academic inquiry, so that knowledge-inquiry is rejected and wisdom-inquiry is adopted and implemented instead, would be to change almost every branch and aspect of academia, and the way academia is related to the rest of society. A radical intellectual and institutional revolution would be involved. Academia would implement a new paradigm for rational inquiry. This chapter spells out twenty six changes to academia that need to be made for wisdom-inquiry to be put into academic practice.

The idea of learning from the solution to the first great problem of learning how to solve the second problem goes back to the 18th century Enlightenment—especially the French Enlightenment. One might even say that this was the fundamental idea of the French Enlightenment: to learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. The philosophes—Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the rest—did what they could to develop this idea, and put it into practice. Unfortunately, in developing the idea, they blundered. They thought the key step was to develop social science alongside natural science, and it was this defective version of the basic idea that was built into academia in the early 20th century with the creation of disciplines and departments of social science. The outcome is academia devoted in the first instance to knowledge. This basic Enlightenment idea—to create an enlightened world by means of science and reason—was opposed by Romanticism. Whereas the Enlightenment stressed the importance of science, knowledge, reason, method, objectivity, logic, evidence, Romanticism stressed the value of art, self-expression, personal feelings, experiences and intuitions, imagination, spontaneity, individuality, creativity, sympathetic understanding, inspiration, genius, vision. Academia today is a confused mixture of what we have inherited from these two sources: the traditional Enlightenment and Romanticism.

Romanticism is right to object to the traditional Enlightenment, but wrong to object on grounds of too much reason. What is wrong with the traditional Enlightenment is not too much reason but, quite to the contrary, not enough. The traditional Enlightenment is a characteristic kind of irrationality masquerading as rationality. In order to develop the profound Enlightenment idea properly of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress, at least two crucial steps must be got right. First, the progress-achieving methods of natural science must be correctly identified. Second, these progress-achieving methods must be correctly generalized and applied to the task of making social progress towards an enlightened world. The traditional Enlightenment got both steps wrong. They failed to appreciate that there are problematic metaphysical assumptions inherent in the aims of science which need to be improved as science proceeds. They failed to generalize this idea properly, so that it becomes a meta-methodology for improving problematic aims whatever we may be doing. And they failed to apply this aim-improving meta-methodology to the social world, to politics, industry, agriculture, economics, international relations, so that in all these fields we may begin to make social progress on analogy with intellectual progress achieved by science. The philosophes developed social inquiry as social science, when the basic idea requires that social inquiry is developed as social methodology—progress-achieving methods being got into social and institutional life. These blunders are still with us today.