Powers That Be

The following passage gives the topic for a recent essay contest sponsored by a professional journal of philosophy:

Philosophers of different stripes have been attracted to an Eleatic Principle:

to be real is to possess a power to affect (or to be affected by) other things.

On such a view, science aims to identify powers of the fundamental entities

and show how these can account for powers possessed by objects made up

of those fundamental entities. Were this so, intrinsic properties of concrete

objects would be powers; saying what something is would involve saying

what it could do and what could be done to it.

In what follows, I intend to carry out an investigation ofthis “Eleatic Principle”—“to be real is to possess a power to affect (or to

be affected by) other things”—and what it implies about and for science. But preliminary to that investigation, it will be of help to get our historical bearings. Aside from taking the hint in calling the principle “Eleatic,” my aim in connecting up this principle with its historical roots is get clear on two questions which arise from what is said in the paragraph above: (1) Who are the “philosophers of different stripes” that have been attracted to this principle? And (2) why have they been attracted to it?

IAs the writer of the above paragraph intimates, the

principle that has attracted philosophers of different stripes has its roots in the history of Hellenic philosophy:

it is “Eleatic.” Elea, located in what is now southeastern Italy, was the home of Xenophanes, who founded a school there for the philosophical study of nature. It was Xenophanes who first presented the dialectic of permanence and change which led to the development of both Heraclitus’ metaphysical claim that “all is in flux” and Parmenides’ metaphysical claim that “all is permanent.” Heraclitus’ viewseems to deny the existence of any sort of substance or matter which undergoes the change, while Parmenides’ view seems to deny the existence of any sort of movement or energy which affects matter, causing it to change. Parmenides was a famous—or perhaps an infamous—student of Xenophanes at his Eleatic school. Given this historical context, it is reasonable to understand the above mentioned principle to be an attempt to resolve the tension between a Heraclitan view and a Parmenidean view of nature. In other words, the principle is along the same lines as those presented by others in the past who have attempted to resolve this tension. The form that this tension takes in our modern times is, of course, described in different terms, but it arises out of essentially the same sort of dialectical problem: change/permanence; substance/qualities;mass/energy. (The modern form of the source of this tension will be elucidated below.) Thus, we can understand the sense in which both the tension and the principle, which is proposed as a resolution to the tension, are “Eleatic.”

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The writer of the paragraph also intimates the connection of this Eleatic Principle with the aims of science: Science is supposed to “identify powers of fundamental entities and show how these can account for powers possessed by objects made up from these fundamental entities.” Given the modern conception of science as the search for causes and effects (as opposed to reasons and actions, which many scientists say can be reduced to causes and effects), it is reasonable to assume that the philosophers who are attracted to this principle are primarily those who suppose that science has or will reveal the “reality” of things. Those who suppose that metaphysics is a science, in the modern sense of science. Such philosophers have, in modern times, been identified as “naturalists.” But there were plenty of “naturalists” in ancient times as well.

Democritus, for example.Democritus was the most prominent atomist of the ancient

world. Though not from Elea himself (he was from Abdera, in Thrace, and taught at the school there, founded by his predecessor, Leucippus), he was an intellectual descendant of the Eleatics, proposing a modified metaphysical monism—all things are composed of imperceptible particles: atoms, which are themselves eternal and invisible; absolutely small, so small that their size cannot be diminished (hence the name “atom,” which means “indivisible”); absolutely fulland incompressible, they are without pores and entirely fillthe space they occupy; homogeneous, differing only in

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figure, arrangement, position, magnitude and, consequently,in weight (although some dispute this). However, while agreeing with the Eleatics as to the eternal sameness of Being (“nothing can arise out of nothing; nothing can be reduced to nothing”), Democritus followed the physicists in denying its oneness and immobility. Movement and plurality being necessary to explain the phenomena of the universe andimpossible without space, he asserted that space (or the Void) had an equal right with matter to be considered “existent.” Thus, his solution to the Eleatic paradox of motion was to ascribe ontological status to “the Void,” the infinite space within which the infinite number of atoms moved. Although atoms may differ in quantity, their differences of quality are only apparent, due to the impressions caused on our senses by different configurationsand combinations of atoms. For example, a thing is only hot or cold, sweet or bitter, hard or soft by convention; the only things that exist in reality are the atoms and the void. Since all phenomena are composed of the same eternal atoms, it may be said that nothing comes into being or perishes in the absolute sense of the words, although the compounds of the atoms are liable to increase and decrease, appear and disappear.

Thus, from the properties and actions of these atoms arises the “world” of phenomena, the “world” of appearances.Since Democritus supposed these atoms to be the basic

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constituents of matter, his philosophy was fully materialistic.

Democritus’ “naturalist” counterpart during the Enlightenment was John Locke, who proposed that the “insensible parts” of sensible objects each possessed the same primary qualities as the larger object to which they belonged: the insensible parts of a rectangular object were themselves rectangular; a solid object was composed of equally solid parts; the degree of motion (or rest) of an object relative to other objects was directly proportional to the degree of motion (or rest) of its “insensible parts.”Locke’s well known claim is that these primary qualities “are utterly inseparable from [an object], in what estate soever it be; such as in all the alterations and changes it suffers, all the force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps; and such as sense constantly finds in every particle of matter, which has bulk enough to be perceived, and the mind finds inseparable from every particle of matter, thoughless than to make it self singly be perceived by our senses.” He gives this illustration: “Take a grain of wheat,divide it into two parts, each part still has solidity, extension, figure, and mobility; divide it again, and it retains still the same qualities; and so divide it on, till the parts become insensible, they must retain still each of them all those qualities.”1 In contrast to the primary

1 Locke, J. (1975). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Book

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qualities, Locke distinguishes a class of secondary qualities, “which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities.”2 Locke bases this distinction between primary and secondary qualities on his observation that some of the sensible qualities of objects appear to remain the same regardless of change (the “primary qualities”), while other ones appear to be different under different circumstances (the “secondary qualities”). The next topic Locke considers is “how bodies produce ideas in us,” which, he says, “is manifestly by impulse, the only waywhich we can conceive bodies operate in.”3 By “by impulse” Locke means “that some motion [from the external objects we perceive] must be thence continued by our nerves, or animal spirits, by some parts of our bodies, to the brains or the seat of sensation, there to produce in our minds the particular ideas we have of them. And since the extension, figure, number, and motion of bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the sight, ’tis evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come from themto the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion, which produces these ideas, which we have of them in us.”4 In

II, Chapter VIII, §9.2 Locke (1975), §10.3 Locke (1975), §11.4 Locke (1975), §12.

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other words, the motion of the “insensible parts” of objectscommunicate their motion to the “insensible parts” of our bodies—nerves, or “animal spirits.” This communication of motion is supposed by Locke to take place literally through the impact of the “insensible parts” emitted by the perceived object with the “parts” of our bodies designed forperception—the eyes, the nerves, the brain, the “animal spirits.”

The distinction between primary and secondary qualities isan anachronism now, as is his supposition that the “insensible parts” possess the same primary qualities of theobjects they compose. (Indeed, Berkeley soon undermined Locke’s distinction, although in a way that Locke was not expecting.) Moreover, the notion that perception takes placeby means of “impulse” has been greatly modified by contemporary neurophysics, although the general model has not been abandoned. But what is not anachronistic (yet) are at least two principles that form the basis of the scientific empiricism that still dominates the discussion incontemporary “naturalistic” metaphysics. We find these two principles being followed by both the ancient “naturalists” and the enlightenment “naturalists.” We might think of theseas the principles on which the Eleatic Principle about powers is accepted by those who accept it.

The first principle is this: A causal explanation of how an object

or a phenomenon is perceived must also be a description of an unperceived

reality—the reality “behind” the perceived phenomena. We can easily see

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that Locke held to this principle. He does not present his idea that the “insensible parts” of sensible objects each possess the same primary qualities as the larger object to which they belong as an hypothesis: rather, he says that “the mind finds [primary qualities] inseparable from every particle of matter,” and that, despite the division of matter into smaller and smaller parts, “they must retain still each of them all those [primary] qualities.” Nor does he present the proposition that “ideas” are produced in us by means of “impulse” as an hypothesis: rather, he says thisis “the only way which we can conceive bodies operate in.” That this principle is implicitly accepted in much of contemporary metaphysics one need only glance at a philosophy of science textbook or scholarly work in that area: scientific theories are presented as “descriptions” of“what is really going on” when we observe a specific phenomenon. What “goes on” is not what we observe, but what “lies behind” what we observe. The explanation of how we observe what we observe is taken to be a description of whatwe would observe if we could “really” observe. Of course, “really observing” is not something we can do by just payingcloser attention: our problem is not inattentiveness or imperfectly operating senses, it is a limitation of our verynature. But, we make up for it through our inventiveness andour reasoning powers.

The second principle can be seen in the tendency which is common to many (if not all) “naturalistic” approaches to

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ontological questions. The tendency in what both Democritus and Locke do, which is also typical in contemporary “naturalistic” metaphysics, is the tendency to think of division as the means to finding what is more “fundamental.”As with Locke, this division is often thought of in reference to matter: the most “fundamental” entities are thesmallest ones. Other times, the division is not thought of in the physical sense of the smallest, but in the logical sense of “simples”: the most “fundamental entities” are the simplest ones. But the tendency in both cases is to use the method of division—analysis—as the only way of discovering what is ontologically “fundamental.” This tendency demonstrates yet another implicit principle in modern “Naturalistic” metaphysics: that “reality” is to be found at the lowest

level of analysis, i.e., when no further analysis is possible. Whatever that level is.

Both of these principles are consequences of the broader principle that we cannot meaningfully talk about what there is without

taking into account the means by which we can come to know it. This was thedistinctive feature of Descartes’ skeptical method, in whichquestions about how it is we can know replaced questions about what there is as “first philosophy.” This principle was common to nearly all of the European philosophers of theEnlightenment, rationalists and empiricists alike. The culmination of this change in logical priority came with Kant’s “transcendental turn.” Since Kant, philosophical differences about metaphysics have nearly always been

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evaluated and judged on the criterion of knowability. That is, the differences are only secondarily about what is: theyare primarily differences about what are the means to knowledge. We can see that Locke is following this principlewhen he supposes that the “insensible parts” of an object possess the same primary qualities as the object itself, forwhat motivates Locke in supposing this is to explain how it is that we can know anything about those objects. Obviously,Locke could not have empirically discovered this—the “parts”are supposed to be “insensible.” But in order to avoid skepticism, he offers this supposal and he presents it as ifit—or something like it—“must be the case.” In order to establish the adequacy of our “ideas” (i.e., to “save the appearances”), Locke appeals to the supposed realities of “insensible parts,” and, more importantly, to their supposedpowers to cause us to have certain perceptions. Thus, under an empiricist conception of knowledge-by-perception, the powersof these “insensible parts” necessarily form the basis of “what is”; they would be ontologically “fundamental” becausethey would be epistemologically “fundamental.”

I have, so far, tried to show which philosophers would be attracted by the Eleatic Principle that “to be real is to possess a power to affect (or to be affected by) other things”: namely, the ones we might call “Naturalists,” in accordance with the historical account just given. These philosophers may have “different stripes”—i.e., they may have different conceptions of what the “fundamental

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entities” are and what “properties” these entities possess—but they all have stripes: they all adhere to (some form of)the three principles I have elucidated. These philosophers are the tigers, but not all philosophers are tigers; some are leopards, with spots instead of stripes; some are lions,with or without manes; some may even be bears. Not all philosophers are “naturalists.”

But now I will suggest an answer to the second question: Why are such philosophers—the “naturalists,” the tigers—attracted to the Eleatic Principle about powers? I suggestedbefore that an Eleatic Principle would appeal to those who felt an intellectual tension arising from an Eleatic problem. That is, a dialectical tension with regard to answering general questions about the nature of Nature. The questions for the Eleatics were, “Is Nature constituted of one (kind of) thing, or a plurality of (kinds of) things?”; “Is Nature fundamentally permanent or fundamentally in flux?” The empiricist philosophers (Locke, et. al.) asked, “Is Nature what we perceive it to be, or is it different?”; “Do objects in Nature have properties, or are they constituted of properties?” Naturalistic philosophers today are asking similar questions: “How do the properties or powers of fundamental entities—elementary “particles” such as quarks, photons, mesons, bosons, etc.—interact so as to produce observable phenomena?”; “Given the nature of these fundamental entities and the fact that the instruments of observation (or measurement) are necessarily constituted of

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such entities themselves, to what extent can observation (ormeasurement) be said to reveal reality to us?” One can easily see that the questions asked by naturalistic philosophers in previous ages have, in recent times, been modified in light of the advent of the theories of relativity and the quantum, but these questions are still informed by the three principles:

The first principle—a causal explanation of how an object or a

phenomenon is perceived must also be a description of an unperceived reality,

the reality “behind” the perceived phenomena—is often directly followed by “naturalistic” philosophers when they say that quantum theory and relativity theory “describe” the way things “really are.” The transformation of these theories from being causal explanations of what we observe to be the case to being literal descriptions of what is the case is made without hesitation. For it has often been true in science that the entities or processes which were originallypresented as part of an explanatory theory are, at a later time, confirmed to exist or take place by direct observation. Thus, it is natural to suppose that this is always a possibility. What is easily overlooked is the logical necessity that explanation must end somewhere, and the logical possibility that the “fundamental entities” which lie at the roots of (causally) explaining observable (or measurable) phenomena may not themselves be observable (or measurable). The latter, the logical possibility, is indeed acknowledged to be the case with regard to quanta

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(a.k.a. the measurement problem), and yet it remains conventional to say that quantum theory and relativity theory “describe how things really are.”

The second principle—“reality” is to be found at the lowest level of

analysis, i.e., when no further analysis is possible—is the basis for the common naturalist claims that the objects and events of our ordinary experience are “made up of” atomic or subatomic entities and interactions, and that it is this “realm” that is the “reality” which underlies the “phenomenal world” of our ordinary experience. One of the interpretive consequences of quantum theory is that these entities cannotreally be thought of either as “particles” (which would fit with our usual picture of “matter”) or as “waves” (which would fit with our usual understanding of energy). In quantum mechanics, these “fundamental entities” are represented mathematically as a wave equation which yields the probable measured values of the momentum or the positionof one of these “entities” at any given time. It is commonlysaid by quantum physicists that the wave equation “has no direct physical significance”; that it “has no physical interpretation.” Perhaps it is best to describe quanta as “powers,” since this term avoids the dangers of calling themeither “particles” or “waves.” One can easily see the attraction of such a description, given the current state ofparticle physics. What is not usually asked, is whether the wave equation is a description of anything at all.

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IILet’s investigate where the language of “description” fits

(or doesn’t fit) in physics. Such an investigation will, I think, show the extent to which the Eleatic Principle about powers can (or cannot) be of help to “naturalists” in sayingwhat entities are real.

How do words like “photon” come into use, and how is it that we come to think of them as, in some sense, “describingreality”? Well, they first come in as part of a theoretical explanation—that is, they help explain what we do see. This is crucial: they cannot replace or falsify what we do observe, for otherwise they could never do what they were meant to do—namely, to explain what obviously does happen. This is the context in which Einstein first introduced the term “photon”—as part of the explanation of the photoelectric effect. Einstein made use of Planck’s notion that radiative energy is emitted discontinuously, as small quanta of energy, to show that the best explanation of the observed radiation pattern when light is shone on certain metals—i.e., discrete levels of emitted electron energy—is that the incident light causing the electron emission also propagates as small, discrete energy packets. That is, he proposed that light, too—like matter; like the metal sampleshe used in his experiments—is composed of extremely small

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“particles,” which he called photons. Physicists, we might say, are in the business of providing causal explanations for physical objects or events like the photoelectric effect. Describing the object or event is necessary only to clarify or remind ourselves what it is that is to be explained, but the existence or the nature of this object orevent is not, in any given case, in question. It cannot be if we are to proceed. The real work comes in providing an explanation for it. And it was as an element of causal explanation that the term “photon” was first used: it was a “theoreticalentity.”

Now, within the context of theoretical science, the terms for these theoretical entities often take on a different useas they become more accepted as being part of an accurate explanation (and “accurate” here means something like “complete” or “unfalsified”). They now get used, within thiscontext, not as part of an explanation, but as part of that which (now) needs to be explained. For example, in modern physics the Newtonian notion of force, which was originally used by Newton and others to explain motion and the transferof energy, has been explained in terms of subatomic “particles” (or “entities”). All forces are now explained interms of various kinds of “elementary entities”—electrons, photons, muons, mesons, gravitons and so-ons. So even thoughNewtonian force was originally used to explain the obvious motion seen in the “macroscopic” world, within the current context of theoretical physics, force is now something taken

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for granted as “really existing” between objects. The point is that it is crucial for us to be reminded of how it is that a word is being used in a given context. It is crucial because without it we may be wasting our time on interminable and meaningless debate, setting aside what is significant for the sake of what is insignificant.

Thus, there often seems to be a puzzle in asking such questions as “Do the equations of physics say how the world really is?” or “Are the theoretical entities of physics real?” As I have pointed out, the puzzle here stems from thevarious ways in which we use the word “real”: in one sense these theoretical entities cannot be said to be real—after all, they are just part of an explanatory model of how thingsstand. But in another sense they can be said to be real, because they are part of an accurate explanation of how thingsstand. A model, we often say, is not “the real thing” (I think of the model airplanes I built as a boy, or of the latest, most up-to-date model of education to come out of myuniversity’s School of Education). Yet the theoretical physicist, in hypothesizing the existence of some previouslyunknown subatomic entity, does suppose these entities to be “real.” That is, if the theory works—if it accurately and comprehensively explains what we have observed to be the case—then it works because of the reality of such things as the theory hypothesizes.

It may be the case, of course, that someone will ask, for example, “Are photons real?” and mean by it, “Do they really

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explain anything? Are they needed to explain what we do see?” The proper kind of answer here would then be to demonstrate how their existence fills a gap in our current physical theory. But the question can (and usually does) also arise after we determine (at least to some degree) the accuracy of the theoretical explanation. It is at this point that we begin to worry in a different sense about whether or not such theoretical entities are real: now we want to know if we can somehow observe or measure these entities themselves. When this worry does arise—when we do accept the explanation as the most accurate one—then we usually go back to the laboratory, back to making observations, performing experiments, searching for the theoretical entities themselves: not just hypothesizing their existence, but looking for them; trying to detect their presence. In other words, we seek to verify the existence of these theoretical entities in the same way thatwe verify the existence of any other physical object: by measuring and/or observing it. So, ordinarily there is a distinction between the explanation of how it is that we areable to observe some object or event and the object or eventitself. The means of observation (or measurement) is usuallydistinct from its object. (I am reminded of the anecdotal story of Bertrand Russell who, in the heat of arguing that all matter was mostly space, yelled out “this table is not solid!” while pounding it with his fist. This illustrates the confusion that comes from failing to notice the

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distinction between what is given as an explanation and whatis given as a description.)

At this point I want to note the peculiarity of quantum theory. I have tried to show that there is a distinction to be made between the meaning of the words “real” and “reality” as they are used to qualify an element of a scientific explanation, and how they are used to qualify theexistential status of whatever it is that needs explaining. But in the case of quantum entities this distinction can no longer be made: the quantum explanation of how we observe ormeasure anything at all includes (or makes use of) that which we are (now) concerned to observe or measure. This is the so-called quantum measurement problem. If quantum theory is accurate, then we cannot ever observe or measure the entities it posits, because we would have to use these very same entities to observe or measure them, and there’s no telling

exactly what it is you would be observing or measuring. This limitation isnot an empirical one; it is a conceptual limit. For even if wewere to go on to explain the existence and nature of quantumentities in terms of some even more “fundamental” entities or powers or processes, we could never observe or measure these. The explanation must end somewhere. In physics, it ends with observation: we do not accept any theory that fails to explain what we see.

But this, of course, is unsatisfactory to the metaphysicist. The metaphysicist wants further explanation, beyond what the physicist can supply. This dissatisfaction,

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which is also the urge to generalize and simplify all naturein order to understand it, is revealed in the tendency to say that quantum theory (of which quantum mechanics is the mathematical model) “describes reality.”

Now the result of relativity theory is a mathematical equation of matter and energy: and the result of quantum theory is a mathematical equation of the probable kinetic energy of a moving particle and a certain wave frequency (the wave equation). The trouble in identifying these equations as “descriptions” will show up when we then go on to ask what they are descriptions of. As noted before, it seems that in the case of quantum theory, the “fundamental entities” can only be spoken of as elements of a theoretical explanation of what we can observe, not as entities that arethemselves observable. Although these so-called entities areoften referred to as “particles,” these “particles” are not to be thought of on analogy with dust particles, or grains of sand, or microscopic planets. They are quanta; mere quantities—not entities. To think of them as entities would be like supposing that you could use a magnifying glass to pick out the calories in your cheesecake. If we say that these “entities” have certain powers, we mislead ourselves if we think of these powers as being “properties of” some things. All we have are the quantities (spin, charge, magnetic moment, mass) and the probabilities (momentum, position). Thus, when we speak of photons, muons, mesons, bosons, etc., we cannot be referring to what we would

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ordinarily classify as natural objects. Again, this would seemingly be a good reason to classify them as “powers,” fora power is no object either.

But, by forgetting their role in the scheme of causal explanation and supposing quantum theory to be a descriptionof reality, these non-objective “powers” raise questions (and lead to logical possibilities) that “naturalists” wouldnot welcome.

One such unwelcome question is this: How can natural, physical objects be ‘made up of’ mere quantities, mere ‘powers’? What is the sense of saying that natural objects are ‘made up of’ these ‘fundamental entities’ if they are not really entities at all?

But this will not be the end. More such questions would follow: Are we to say of a quantity (or a set of coincidental quantities) that it is “real”? As “real” (more or less?) as what we ordinarily call a natural object? And if such “things” as measurable quantities or observable powers are real, then wouldn’t we have to admit the possiblereality of all sorts of powers normally considered “non-material” or “non-natural”? —Will power. The power of numbers. (The power of one.) Powers of thought. A powerful speech. Political powers. Powers of the State. (Separation of powers.) The power of a dream. Idea-power. Mental powers.Superpowers. Supernatural powers.—

Pandora’s box of powers.

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I suspect that this is not what the “naturalists” want, opening this box of powers. Yet how is one to keep it closed? Cosmologists seem to be helping to pry this dangerous box open when they suppose the reality of unobservable “entities” such as “dark matter” and “dark energy” in the universe. (Could there be anti-powers, just as there are anti-particles? Or would these be just a different kind of powers?) Furthermore, the (cumulative?) power of this dark matter/dark energy is not even quantitatively determined to any precise degree, yet it is supposed to be real. Indeed, would all powers need to be quantified in any precise manner to be considered “real”? “Exactly how powerful was that speech?” And how could powersbe compared? “What counts for more, a large quantity of one power (356 horses), or a combination of various powers in smaller amounts?”

I have been supposing that the “philosophers of different stripes”—the group of various types of “naturalists,” the tigers—think that the Eleatic Principle about powers will solve some persistent or important problems in metaphysics. Specifically, problems that arise from not being able to limit what we call “reality” to just the “natural,” empirically observable world. Unless I have made a mistake in my investigation so far, the Eleatic Principle will not provide the solution these “naturalists” seek.

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IIINow I want to investigate whether or not this Eleatic

Principle can be helpful in solving or resolving any ontological problems outside the preferred parameters of a purely “naturalistic” philosophy. Let’s start with a simple question: How would we tell whether and what powers a thing had?

Let’s imagine a beachcomber, a young university student named Sandy, searching for seashells. She spots the shell ofa mussel, reaches down, and picks it up. Prompted by her philosophy professor’s statement that all real things have powers to affect (or be affected by) other things, she wonders what powers this shell possesses. (“Is it real?” shemay ask.) It would not appear to be particularly powerful—it’s only a small mussel. No longer the home of a living creature, it moves with the waves, traveling with the tides up and down the beach. The waves and the tides seem much more powerful than the little mussel shell. “But wait,” Sandy thinks, “if it is moved by the waves and the tides, wouldn’t it have to have the power to be movable?” Sandy shares her thought with her friend, Wendy. Wendy adds this: “And if the wind cannot move it when it is out of the water,it must also have the power not to be moved.” “So,” Sandy concludes, “it turns out that the shell is real after all, for it has the power to be affected, and also the power to resist being affected. But, now, does it also have the powerto affect other things?” As Sandy ponders this clause, it

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suddenly occurs to her that she might be the thing affected, for in her short time with the shell, it has affected her. First, it caught her attention, it affected her senses; how else could she have seen it, or touched it, or heard the tiny rush of the waves when she held it to her ear? Furthermore, she realizes that she has become fond of the little shell of a mussel, not only because of its delicate beauty, but also because of how it has so pleasantly (and unexpectedly) confirmed what her philosophy professor had proclaimed. She began to think he must be right. It was Wendy who first saw the further implication that Sandy, too,must be real if she was affected by the shell and possessed the power to perceive it.

As you might expect, it would not be long before Sandy andWendy realized that the mussel case is but one instance of all cases where a thing is perceived. Perception is a cause and effect process, necessarily involving a thing perceived and a thing perceiving: a thing affecting and a thing affected. Powers on both sides. Thus, both perceived things and perceiving things must be real. Expanding on the mussel in this way, Sandy and Wendy would be able to confirm, in one fell swoop, the reality of an enormous number of things.

So, it turns out, one way of knowing that a thing has powers is the simplest of all: you only have to perceive it.This also reveals some of the powers a thing has: it has powers to affect your senses in a variety of ways. Sense perception also reveals that you, the perceiver, have

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powers, at least the powers of perception. Any case of perception is sufficient to confirm the reality of both the perceived and the perceiver. Any further investigation of the powers a thing might have is icing on the cake.

Since the icing on a cake is often more interesting than the cake itself, let’s get back to pondering Sandy’s clause—i.e., the further affective powers of the mussel. A number of questions might be raised here. Any further powers we discover a thing to have would have to be accompanied by thepower the thing has to make its further powers known to us; and by our own (further) powers of discovery. So, would these two accompanying powers be the same powers at work as when we originally perceived the thing, or are they different from those powers (the powers involved in sense perception)? Suppose Sandy and Wendy take the mussel shell to their chemistry professor, who then asks them to drop it in a solution of hydrochloric acid and observe what happens.(All of this would, of course, involve the workings of the powers we have already noted, and confirm the reality of theprofessor, the hydrochloric acid, the container it is in, the laboratory, and so on.) They drop the shell in the solution and watch it fizzle and dissolve. They discover even more powers: the power of the shell to be fizzled and dissolved by the acid; the power of the acid to fizzle and dissolve the shell. If they wait long enough, they may discover that the hydrochloric acid has the power to completely dissolve the shell, at which point the girls may

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wonder whether the shell has the power to disappear. The professor, however, would tell them that dissolution is not the same as disappearance; that, at the molecular level, theshell is still there, in the container; no matter or energy has been annihilated, it has all been conserved, but it has taken a different form. The girls may be puzzled by this. How can one be sure that the professor is right? After all, the molecules cannot be observed. Or can they? Well, not without the aid of instruments—and, to see things as small as molecules or atoms, very powerful instruments. Designing and constructing such instruments requires theorizing about what the powers are of the entities that are supposed to be detected through the use of these instruments. When the instruments work to confirm the existence of these entities,they do so by measuring some power or other of these entities. “And so,” the professor might tell the girls, “using instruments to detect entities like molecules and atoms presupposes that they have powers whose effects we canmeasure with instruments.” The girls will now have confirmed, from another professor’s mouth, the reality of unseen entities, because of their powers to affect instruments—which, in their turn, have the power to affect our senses. The logic of this process seems inexorable: the most “fundamental” entities will be those whose powers are the causal basis for all other powers.

But if our friends Sandy and Wendy are careful thinkers, they will also notice that the process of theorizing and

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then confirming the reality of unseen entities requires thatthere be additional powers possessed by the scientists who hypothesize and test these theories, and construct instruments and experiments to that end: the powers of deduction, induction, imagination, and invention. These are powers of a different sort than the powers at work in perception. Supposing that the girls do realize this, shouldwe say that they have thus confirmed the reality of thinkersin addition to the reality of perceivers? And, furthermore, just as the perceivers are (powerfully) affected by the things perceived, shouldn’t we also have to admit that thinkers must be affected by the power (and thus the reality) of the things thought—the ideas deduced, induced, imagined, or invented?

Who can deny that there have been, and continue to be, very powerful ideas? Some of these ideas have affected the lives—whether for good or for ill—of millions of people. If reality were measured by the extent or degree of power a thing has, ideas might turn out, on average, to be “more real” than the things (most) scientists study. Mind over matter . . . maybe.

This last possibility is reminiscent of Bishop Berkeley’s statement that “there is no reality without [or apart from] ideas.” Berkeley, it will be remembered, gave the status of “reality” only to objective ideas—i.e, those originating in God’s mind and then given to men—and to the mind, as the bearer of those ideas. And what would we need from an

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ontology of powers to confirm or deny the former claim? If ideas are admitted to be powerful, there would be no way to resolve the issue. But on what grounds could we deny that ideas can be powerful? Simply giving an argument against it (in fact, giving any argument at all about anything) involves deduction or induction—the very things whose powersare being argued against. Berkeley also argued that the perceived properties of an object constitutes that object; there is no unperceived “substance” that has these properties. The latter claim would seem to be a sensible thing to say with respect to the “fundamental entities” proposed by modern physics. Moreover, if this is what we sayabout the “fundamental entities,” wouldn’t we have to say the same about “objects made up of those fundamental entities”? [A multitude of problematic questions again arisehere: In what sense is an object “made up of” atoms, or subatomic entities? Is, say, a hammer “made up of subatomic particles”? Like a book is made up of paper?]

Another question that might occur to Sandy and Wendy as a result of their experiment with placing the mussel shell in a solution of hydrochloric acid is this: Would powers be both actual and potential (both potential and kinetic), or just one or the other? The acid did not display its power todissolve the shell until the shell was dropped in it: neither did the shell display its powers of dissolution until then.

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Suppose that Sandy and Wendy do ask this question, and as a result, they agree to amend their philosophy professor’s ontological statement thus: “All real things have the potential to affect

something else in some way (maybe even in several ways). A corollary of this is

that all real things also have the potential to be affected by something else in

some way (maybe in several ways).”

They ponder this new and improved statement, looking for away to test its accuracy. Wendy absentmindedly starts to inspect her fingernails (absentmindedness being characteristic of a philosophical nature). A test case occurs to her: “Take a fingernail-clipper. Does it have the potential to affect something else in some way?” Well, of course. A fingernail-clipper obviously has the potential to affect something else—a fingernail—in some way: it can shorten it. A fingernail clipper has the potential to affectmany fingernails, and even the potential to affect the same fingernail in the same way more than once. (Unless it is true what Heraclippus said, that “you can’t clip the same nail twice.”) A fingernail-clipper, in fact, has the potential to affect other things beside the fingernails—toenails, for example. In the absence of a toenail-clipper, a fingernail clipper will suffice (though there may be trouble with the big one; you may have to clip hard). And what about affects other than nail-clipping? Does a fingernail clipper have the potential to affect other effects? Can it affect the weather? No, probably not. There is no record—not even any mythical tales—of Zeus’s lightning

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bolts getting hung up on a (hang) nail, or of Apollo’s chariot being delayed by a nail-clipping. Can it affect the World Series? Well, yes, it has the potential. For example, Team A has a knuckleball pitcher. And, as we all know, a knuckleballer has to have long fingernails to be effective. Imagine what might happen to that pitcher (and his team) if someone snuck into his room the night before the game and clipped his fingernails. Disaster! Can it affect a plane flight from Chicago to London? Absolutely. Just try getting on that flight with a fingernail-clipper in your pocket, especially if it comes with a small nail-file attached—better yet, see what happens if they catch you with it in the cockpit. It’s a potential weapon! Can it affect a person’s marriage? Probably not, but the potential is there,as you might imagine. It may even have the potential to affect things beyond what you or I (or anyone) can imagine. Who can guess whether or not a fingernail-clipper would haveany affect on a black hole? Perhaps it has the potential to increase the mass of that black hole by an infinitesimal amount (next to nothing—but not nothing at all). I can’t imagine that it would have any effect, but it might. It has the potential.

Wendy’s thoughts would have the potential of prompting Sandy to raise a few questions of her own. Perhaps she’d wonder, “Could there be any things that had no powers? And if so, how could we ever know about them? For wouldn’t all known things have the power to make themselves known? Even

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potential powers have to be conceptualized. And wouldn’t that imply a power—the power of conceptualizability? Supposethey couldn’t make themselves known to us, because we do nothave the power to know of them. Would they then have unknowable powers?”

But Wendy is still working on the clipper: “Should we say that it’s not the fingernail-clipper that is affecting all these effects; rather, that it is the one using the fingernail-clipper who is affecting other things with the fingernail-clipper? If so, should we not at least admit thatthe fingernail-clipper has the potential to be used by a person in all these ways (and more): that it is affective inbeing effective (rather than effective at being affective)? After all, it is only by my own power of perception that I know that the fingernail-clipper has any powers at all. So, vis-a-vis the fingernail clipper, I am both the affecter and the affected. That proves my reality in two ways: “I affect,therefore I am; I am affected, therefore I am.”

Thus, it looks like an ontology of powers will lead to a modernized version of the same unresolved debates between realists, idealists and anti-realists (or solipsists) that raged since ancient times. Power-idealism; power-realism; power-solipsism.

And remember that all of these reflections were prompted by the discovery of a shell. That little mussel turned out to be quite powerful indeed!

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And what should we say of the philosophy professor’s statement—the Eleatic Principle about powers? Should we exclaim, “What a powerful statement!”?

Should we say that it is true? Well, what would it mean to call such a Principle false? On what grounds could it be rejected? This will show on what grounds it ought to be accepted.

Clearly, more needs to be said. Or unsaid.

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