Shepherd vol 2 ebook: Chapter 12: Materialistic Methodology

Chapter 12: Materialistic Methodology 

In this chapter, I expand out to the topics of materialism, atheism and dissident theism. In particular, I discuss Shepherd's stance on scientific enquiry and methodology, in relation to her views on Bacon and Newton. In this volume, I have put forward the suggestion that Shepherd was a type of theist materialist, given that she identifies with Joseph Priestley's approach. Further to my discussion of Shepherd and Priestley, in this chapter, I shall expand on another theist materialist, Francis Bacon, whose approach to philosophy and science Shepherd prefers to the also theist but overall less materialist, Newton. Hence I wish to explore the nuances between Early Modern thinkers who, although they were combining materialistic and theistic approaches, display, nevertheless, important differences to appreciate in:

1) how they balance out these seemingly contrasting views

2) how they may see their materialism and theism as mutually supporting one another

3) when their arguments are weighted towards either theism or materialism

Why is this important? Although this research area is of no personal significance or interest to me, it is relevant to my interpretation of Shepherd’s philosophy and my assessment of whether she authored more works than some scholars are prepared to acknowledge. As I discuss in Part 1 of this volume, I argue that geological themes and materialistic approaches in a treatise of disputed authorship does not help us deny with confidence that Shepherd could be the author. As I argue in Part 2, there is textual evidence of Shepherd drawing on examples of geological materials, such as gold, and agreeing with somewhat materialistic claims, especially when it is the more philosophical and rational approach to adopt. 

In her ‘Essays on the Perception of the External Universe’, Shepherd writes:

“It may be thought bold to venture any objection to the Newtonian theory; let it, however, be remembered, that I am speaking of Bacon's method of philosophising. He wished to introduce observation of, and experiments upon nature, before he assigned physical and proximate causes for any given fact, instead of hypothetical occult modes of action; or the ends, instead of the means. I therefore say, that the Newtonian doctrine of attraction is contrary to Bacon's mode of philosophizing ;...”¹

So here² we see the tension between Bacon's more realist, philosophical approach and Newton's science which, according to Shepherd, was prone to resorting to mysterious and occult explanations. This mysterious, and so perhaps also slightly superstitious, approach concerns Shepherd in this passage, and could be why she is more inclined to remain with Bacon's more explicitly materialist philosophical approach than assent to all of Newton's theories, irrespective of any apparently religious overtones³. 

Bacon saw science and religion as compatible with each other, because he thought that scientific enquiry, and the sceptical methodology he advocated in science, merely help us to avoid error and leads us to improve our knowledge of the awesome world God created. 

Newton, however, had a slightly different, less explicitly materialistic approach which seems to have introduced too many mysterious elements into his science. Shepherd picked up on this and, as Leibniz did earlier, criticised any “occult”⁴ notions creeping into scientific explanation, such as gravitational attraction, something that was pivotal to Newton's experimental and theoretical physics. 

On closer examination, it seems to me that Shepherd was not entirely wrong when she objected that there was something incomplete or potentially malfunctioning about Newton's explanation of attraction between two objects. To summarise Newton's claim: “....all objects — from his not-so-apocryphal apple to planets and stars — exert a force that attracts other objects.”⁵ Although this still holds true today for some areas of physics, it ceases to be accurate for certain explanations, such as Mercury’s unusual and seemingly irregular way of orbiting the sun⁶. This was resolved by Einstein when he replaced Newton’s “attractive force” explanation with his own curved notion of space-time⁷. So Shepherd’s argument about the possibly erroneous factors behind Newtonian attraction, which she found too occult to the light of reason, was along the right lines and ahead of her time, since the best alternative explanation arrived much later, when Einstein offered a different explanation. 

Nevertheless, I wish to highlight that Newton was not a typical theist, so he was unlikely to be introducing too much religiously motivated mysteriousness into his science. Newton was a rebellious religious theist, who believed in God but not in the Trinity. Unusually, he managed to escape pressure to be ordained, after securing the Lucasian Professorship of Maths, which allowed him to focus on his science without having to be religiously active, a move that met with agreement from Charles II⁸. 

There are also some variations and nuances in how scholars and scientists understand Newton and any potentially materialistic strands to his thought: 

Some consider Newton a theist, methodological materialist⁹ since, overall, he did not advocate materialism as a school of thought, he just made use of materialism in his scientific methodology. Hence, although Newton is not categorised by scholars as a materialist, especially when it comes to metaphysics, I think it might be plausible to classify him as a methodological materialist. This is perhaps most evident in his work as a scientist, which focused on examining the material world and addressing material substance in nature and the universe. 

Nevertheless, others see strands of materialism elsewhere in Newton. One such scholar is Heylighen, who claims there are materialistic elements in Newton’s metaphysics: “Newtonian ontology therefore is materialistic: it assumes that all phenomena, whether physical, biological, mental or social, are ultimately constituted of matter.”⁹

Having said that, other scholars point out that “Newtonian mechanics, however, is not materialist”¹⁰, although other scholars disagree with this statement. 

This, I maintain, shows that it is not as simple as either classifying a thinker as purely materialist or not. Nor is the interpretative task of the history of philosophy as neat as assuming any sign of materialism must be accompanied by atheistic intentions. There are many different domains within which a thinker may or may not have a materialistic approach. Some thinkers are thoroughgoing materialists, while some are a hybrid by being both selectively materialistic and non materialistic. Either way, in addition, this may or may not reflect their sincerely held religious beliefs and, especially when it comes to Early Modern thinkers, we have to factor in that they may simply be avoiding the charge of heresy, blasphemy or atheism in their writings by overstating their Christian outlook. 

So, what was it that Shepherd preferred about Bacon’s methodology? I suggest his greater appeal for Shepherd lies in Bacon's Realist approach, as well as his attitude that, strictly speaking, nothing is unknowable. “Bacon declared “all knowledge” to be his province”¹². I suggest that Shepherd may have drawn inspiration from Bacon's conviction that a this-worldly focused, thorough-going empirical, Realist and materialistic methodology constitutes our best approach for making bold advancements in natural science, both experimental and philosophical. Hence, Shepherd believed that there was no need to put forward somewhat vague, obscure explanations of phenomena that leave important questions unanswered, such as why two objects should be drawn together seemingly spontaneously. Some of her questions about Newtonian attraction are still being raised today in the scientific community, thus are just as relevant as ever. Avoiding charges of atheism or blasphemy are not an excuse, since Bacon was able to balance both explanations of the immaterial with a certain amount of scepticism, for instance about psychic phenomenon, and his this-worldly explanatory focus. Newton's ideas perhaps seemed a more occult explanation of the laws of attraction in Shepherd's era than it does in the 21st century, when we have access to much better scientific equipment and have the benefit of relating Newton's theories to contemporary discoveries and theories. However, Shepherd certainly seems to share Bacon's desire for new knowledge that expands our intellectual horizons so she would still perhaps identify with Bacon's overall, philosophical methodology more than Newton's approach, even if these 21st century explanations were available to her. 

Bacon is widely interpreted as a thorough-going materialist who did not shy away from the notion that our best explanations of the world lie in material matter. Shepherd perhaps preferred the way Bacon balanced his explanations of material and immaterial things because he could still provide her with the logical and philosophical rigour she was looking for when putting forward suggestions and explaining the natural world. She had greater confidence that Bacon's methodology was a more watertight framework for intellectual breakthroughs in the future and his approach was not compromised by either his theism or his bold intellectual process and approach to learning that he advocated and undertook himself. 

Ironically, Bacon was more prepared to be reductionist about his materialism than Newton, despite perhaps being seemingly more religious and conventional than Newton in other ways. So we learn that Shepherd does not have to profess atheism to be able to see the benefits of a reductionist methodology, at times. Her analysis of Bacon has shown her how even someone she considers a severe theist, hence perhaps someone she considers more religious than herself, has already put forward reductionist materialist arguments in Philosophy. 

Hence, I also argue more broadly, one must resist jumping to conclusions about Early Modern philosophers and thinkers, based on only certain strands of their arguments, at the expense of examining other aspects of their views. Past philosophers are often more eclectic than most contemporary philosophers. They are, therefore, easier to underappreciate if one oversimplifies their views, arguments and body of work as a whole. 

What better message can we take away from Shepherd's treatises, irrespective of our religious or non-religious personal beliefs, than a Baconian hope for current and future intellectual progress in the face of ignorance: “Enlightenment and a better world, Bacon insists, lie within our power; they require only the cooperation of learned citizens and the active development of the arts and sciences.”¹³

References:

¹Shepherd, Mary. Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and Other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation, 1st edition 

(Piccadilly, London, United Kingdom: J. Hatchard and son, 1827), 

http://archive.org/details/essaysonpercepti00shep p364

²Ibid

³Ibid

⁴Ibid

⁵NBC News. ‘Einstein Showed Newton Was Wrong about Gravity. Now Scientists Are Coming for Einstein.’, 3 August 2019. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/einstein-showed-newton-was-wrong-about-gravity-now-scientists-are-ncna1038671.

⁶Ibid

⁷Ibid

⁸‘Newton’s Religious Life and Work’, 

accessed 21 September 2024, 

https://www.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk/view/contexts/CNTX00001#:~:text=Newton’s%20decision%20not%20to%20take,university%2C%20these%20had%20completely%20dissipated

⁹‘Methodological Materialism’, accessed 21 September 2024, 

https://www.astronomynotes.com/science-religion/NormLevan/s3-annot.htm

¹⁰Francis Heylighen, ‘The Newtonian World View’, 

19 April 2006, accessed 21 September 2024, 

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/NEWTONWV.html#:~:text=Newtonian%20ontology%20therefore%20is%20materialistic,are%20ultimately%20constituted%20of%20matter 

¹¹Ioannis Trisokkas, ‘Boris Hessen and Newton’s God’ (Society and Politics Vol. 13, No.1(25), April 2019), https://philarchive.org/archive/TRIBHA-2 p68

¹²Simpson, David. ‘Francis Bacon (1561—1626)’ Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy’., section ‘d. The Great Instauration’.

Accessed 21 September 2024. 

https://iep.utm.edu/francis-bacon/.

¹³Ibid