Re: Did George Berkeley refute Issac Newton?

Guy Macon wrote:
John Doty wrote:

Should 18th century physicists have abandoned Newtonian mechanics and returned to a belief in Aristotelian physics when Berkeley showed that it was based on fallacious reasoning? Straight answer, no evasion please.

The above is a classic example of the limited/false alternatives
fallacy. You constructed the above argument with the unwarranted assumption that the only possible alternative to Newtonian mechanics is Aristotelian physics, and proceeded to ask me to choose between
those options as if they were the only possible answers.

Once again, you evade. Never a straight answer to a simple question.

What alternative was available to 18th century physicists? But, just to make you happy, I'll rephrase the question:

Should 18th century physicists have abandoned Newtonian mechanics when Berkeley showed that it was based on fallacious reasoning?


It is also a classic example of the begging the question fallacy
-- arriving at a conclusion based on statements that themselves have not been proven to be true. In this case you assume but have not established that George Berkeley proved that Issac Newton used fallacious reasoning.

Nobody has refuted Berkeley's reasoning to this day, as far as I know. It's solidly based in classical logic, in particular in the "law of the excluded middle".

Of course, if you actually study logic instead of just worshiping it you'll see that that's a rather shaky principle. Constructivist mathematics throws it out. Lyttleton' philosophy of scientific knowledge (with which I'm in close agreement) is that it's *all* middle in the real world: it's truth and falsehood that are denied us.

The physicist's answer to Berkeley was to ignore his arguments, as calculus works, and that's what matters to a realist. The mathematician's answer was to change the foundations of calculus, but that took more than a century.


It should be noted -- even though what follows does not imply that
Berkeley was wrong; that would itself be a logical fallacy -- that Berkeley conducted his campaign against Newtonian mechanics because he opposed what he saw as the religious implications. Himself being an Anglican bishop, he was attempting to defend traditional Christianity against Deism.

That is historical interest, but of no relevance to either logicians or physics. Practitioners of the logicist philosophy you miscall "critical thinking" care about getting answers that are correct in some well defined imaginary world. Physicists care about getting answers that are correct in the real world. The motivation behind the answer matters to neither.


The interested reader can read Berkeley's arguments and decide for himself whether he actually refuted Newton. Look here:

URL: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/Analyst/

Title: THE ANALYST; OR, A DISCOURSE Addressed to an Infidel MATHEMATICIAN. WHEREIN It is examined whether the Object, Principles, and Inferences of the modern Analysis are more distinctly conceived, or more evidently deduced, than Religious Mysteries and Points of Faith. By George Berkeley (1734)

Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analyst

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/Defence/
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Jurin/NoFriend/
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Walton/Vindication/








George Berkeley on killfiles (written in 1735):

"There are some Men that can neither give nor take an Answer, but writing merely for the sake of writing multiply words to no purpose. I shall no more ask [him] to explain any thing. For I can honestly say, the more he explains, the more I am puzzled. At first I consider'd him in another light, as one who had good reason for keeping to the beaten Track, who had been used to dictate, who had terms of art at will, but was indeed, at small trouble about putting them together, and perfectly easy about his Reader's understanding them. It must be owned, in an age of so much ludicrous humour, it is not every one can at first sight discern a Writer's real design. But, be a man's Assertions ever so strong in favour of a Doctrine, yet if his Reasonings are directly levelled against it, whatever Question there may be about the matter in Dispute, there can be none about the Intention of the Writer."

Indeed. Please reread this and meditate.

--
John Doty, Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
--
History teaches that logical consistency is neither sufficient nor necessary to establish practical, real world truth. Those who attempt to use logic for that purpose are abusing it.
.

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