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THE METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS

George Mpantes mathematics teacher

Abstract

www. mpantes. gr

The methodology of science

Positivism
Metaphysics
Pythagorean philosophy of numbers

The methodology of science

In the book the evolution of scientific thought, Abraham D 'Abro presents
the methodology of science (Physics) from its first steps, from Galileo and Newton,
until today. He claims that this methodology is the message for each meaning we
ascribe to the world from the perspective of science. The natural philosophy is finally
a philosophy of science and through the methodology of science, it breaks off all
contact with the traditional philosophy, which D 'Abro rejects as it tries to interpret the
results of physics with the arbitrary ways of an unskilled ...
.Clifford in his popular essays , voices the scientific attitude with increased
emphasis when he writes: the name philosopher , which meant originally lover of wisdom ,
has come in some strange way to mean a man who thinks it his business to explain
everything in a certain number of large books. It will be found , I think, that in proportion to his
colossal ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system which he sets up; because it
is so much easier to put an empty room tidy than a full one . these opinions prove that there
exists a definite misunderstanding between scientists and philosophers; a misunderstanding
which might easily have been avoided had philosophers possessed a proper realization of
their inevitable limitations when discussing scientific matters. The simplest way to approach
the source of the trouble appears to be to anlyse the methods of scientists and ascertain in
what respect they differ from those of philosophers..

Greek philosophers,

metaphysicians, a-priorists,

neo-realists and all the

-isms have no reason to natural philosophy, which reaches its perfection through the
theories

of

mathematical

physics.

.. it arises that the distinction between idealism and realism is purely academic in science,

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for our rule of action will be the same whichever of the two opposing philosophies we may
prefer...we must agree that the theoretical physicists must be called philosophers, they are
the philosophers of the inorganic world , as the pure mathematicians might be called the
philosophers of abstract relations..

The "method" is, claims D 'Abro, the only thing we can discuss about all
questioning of philosophers, the scientists continue completely independently of the
philosophers, and the scientific branch is faithfully following its own methodology,
which is associated with philosophical views of the majority of physicists

and

mathematicians .
Through a variety of examples from the development of theoretical physics,
essentially an overview of the entire of physics, (mechanics, field theories , etc.
phenomenological

theories)

establishes

the

central

dogma

of

scientific

methodology that

it consists in coordinating and linking together in a rational manner a number of

experimental facts , with the maximum of simplicity. By a rational way we mean primarily
according to the rules of logic. As for the criterion of simplicity , which enable us to select
one co-ordination rather than another ,it appears to be linked with our valuing of the
expenditure of effort. Thus even a dog finds it simpler to enter a house by the front door rather
than clamber in through the back win dow...

In the more elementary cases , the procedure is one of commonplace ,

logical and inductive reasoning; but in the more advanced cases the process is
exclusively mathematical. Nevertheless, as the methods of co-ordination are
essentially the same in all cases , the mathematical ordinations , in view of their
greater clarity , can be studied to advantage as typical instances in this respect.
As for the problem of knowledge it appears necessary to approach it by the
usual method of scientific investigation:
Knowledge is a construct or co-ordination in which our sensations enter merely
as fundamental elements; judgment and interference enter into knowledge. For instance
when as a result of our visual and tactual sensations we recognize that a table is there before
us , we are claiming knowledge. But visual and tactual impressions by themselves do not
constitute knowledge. . so we should recognize priority to the awareness of the senses
than in so-called direct revelations of perception ...

This theory for empirical origin of knowledge, is applied to our understanding

of space, time, matter, motion, atomism of matter and light, etc., and gives us the
sense of reality.

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The reality for science says D 'Abro, has a special meaning, which is produced
of our scientific knowledge about the world, that is determined by the methodology of
science and not disclosed elsewhere.
.but this reality, once again, is nothing but the expression of the simplest coordination

of

facts:

no

genuine

metaphysical reality is implied. If we discard

the criterion of simplicity , we may conceive
of our world as many different ways as we
please. For example the double bending of
a ray of light , and Mercurys motion , would
be accounted for by a modification of the
Newton law of gravitation ..

The co-ordination of methodology consolidates the difference between the

substance and structure of the world, and science to yields the second with the
logical co-ordinations of

methodology. The co-ordination

can not assign the

substance, it is simply a co-ordination. Science does not explain , it describes! The

substance may change in nature , yet no difference will be perceived ; but if the
relationships are modified , a new world will divulge itself to our observation.
For the reality of substance

the mathematical equations are nothing but relations , and from initial relations all
we can deduce are other relations. In other words , our equations can never yield us more
than we originally put into them. It follows that were all relationships in nature to be preserved
and the substances change , no observable difference could be detected; and we should
never be able to differentiate between a whole class of worlds identical in structure but
differing in substance. .If, then, we discard the procedure of the mystic , or of the
metaphysician who claims a knowledge that cannot be submitted to the control of experiment
, we must recognize that substance escapes us completely and that our knowledge of the
real word can at best reduce to a skeleton or structure.

For the reality of structure which the metaphysician would defend (quite
aside from the reality of substance) presupposes his a priori belief in the inevitable
simplicity of nature. But simplicity is, after all, but an expression of human
appreciation. So the structure, is our construction and we can not identify reality
with the structure that we gave it. The reality is defined by the simplicity of our coordination not the supposed simplicity of nature. Nothing is assumed a priori, and this
pragmatic sense of reality is that of the methodology of science. Boyle said, "I do not

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want stories about the truth of reality, only consistent theories" and the Larmor the
laws of nature are, after all, but laws of mind" and
...I am convinced that the philosophers have had a harmful effect upon the
progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of
empiricism , where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of a priori . this is
particularly true in our concepts of time and spaceEinstein

.. Of course the type of reality which we have been branding as

elusive is the absolute reality , the true being of the metaphysician. The scientist
also appeals the word reality but he employs it in a different sense. For him, reality
is identified with simplicity of co-ordination , and he states his view explicitly, realizing
full well that a reality of this type is far from being absolute and that is essentially
pragmatic. It is for reasons such as these that the vast majority of scientists are
agnostics in heart , not on account of any a priori predilection , but because a proper
understanding of the limitation of scientific Knowledge leaves them no other
alternative , refusing as they do

to accept the Knowledge of the mystic of

metaphysician as of any significance whatsoever. But scientific agnosticism must not

be confused with that extreme form of idealism which denies the existence of any
world apart from consciousness. It merely contents itself

with stating that the

objective world of science is nothing but the embodiment of the simplest coordination of sense impressions , for which some unknowable supra-intelligible
world1 is assumed to be responsible..
What is the program of the pragmatism that characterizes the scientific
reality? What it consists the value of scientific knowledge?
It consists of the provision which can yield for the evolution of natural
systems, 'nearby'. The quantitative reduction favors the mathematical investigation
which 'runs' cognitive development and create forecasts. This generates the
impression-the assumption that mathematical analysis is applicable to the physical
world (mathematical hypothesis). This case could bring us a 'metaphysical'
meaning to our world, but D 'Abro, removes this version (mathematical hypothesis)
.Here we must recall that however mysterious it may seem , nature appears to be
amenable to mathematical investigation and to be governed by rigid mathematical laws , at
least to a first approximation . So far as scientists are concerned , this belief is not the
outcome of religious or philosophical presuppositions. Rather is a belief which is forced upon
1

These are the most critical reports about the philosophy of science. Cantor said that

in the level of Knowledge, there is a principle of conservation: the principle of conservation

of ignorance! (my comment)

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our minds by the triumphs of theoretical physics, the first grand example Newtons celestial
mechanics. But a closer microscopic survey might prove that

this appearance of

mathematical purity and simplicity in nature was due to our crude macroscopic survey of
phenomena. For instance, if the conditions are sufficiently chaotic , the chaos will generate
simplicity when we view things from a macroscopic standpoint; it is only when we wish to view
things microscopically that the chaos appears and mathematical methods become
impossible. .

So finally what is the nature of a scientific theory?

So, the methodology of physics defines the concept of the reality of science,
a 'becoming into being' , but all this is a reality for specialists, who will speak about it
coldly and objectively, without the warmth of a meaning, plan, or purpose, without
qualities, without any poetic relationship with man - unknowable supra-intelligible
world - a meaningless becoming which is to be there, and tending nowhere. But
this is the only knowledge that helped man in his survival and his dominance of
nature.
Obviously (continues D Abro) there is nothing in the nature of an explanation in
a scientific theory. Phenomena are not explained; they are merely interconnected , or
described in terms of their mutual relations. As a matter of fact , there is no cause to be
surprised at this failure of science to explain phenomena, the failure arises not from the
limitations of science ,but from the limitations of the human mind itself. All we can ever do is
to interpret A in terms of B , and B in terms of C. However far we go, we can never avoid an
ultimate unknowable agent2.

Thus the Greeks wondered why the earth did not fall. An explanation was
soon forthcoming. The giant Atlas holds it on his shoulders. But what, then ,
prevented the giant Atlas from falling together with the earth he was carrying? The
nether region on which he stands gave him a support. This is as far as the
explanation went , for no theory seems to have been advanced explaining why the
nether regions did not fall with the Atlas and the earth.
We might consider more scientific examples; but we should find that
the case is always the same. A is described in terms of B, B in terms of C, and so on.
Consider the phenomenon of gravitation. Does any one really imagine that Newton
and Einstein has ever attempted to explain gravitation? To say that gravitation is a
property of matter or a property of space-time in the neighbourhood is just as much
2

This ultimate unknowable agent

of the scientific

interpreted by metaphysics! (Pythogorean metaphysics )

explanation, is usually

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of an explanation as to say that sweetness is a property of sugar; for in last analysis ,
what is matter, what is space-timw? If we say that matter is an aggregate of
molecules , atoms, electrons, protons, what of it? What are electrons? what are
protons? We can only confess our complete ignorance and while attempting to
reduce the number of unknown fundamental entities

to a minimum , content

ourselves with describing the properties which appear to characterise them and the
relations that appear to connect them. Clearly, those who seek explanations will find
no comfort in science. They must turn to metaphysics..
Well what do we do with reality? We describe a behavior, pieces of it , from
A to B, "essentially setting up traps" in affairs of reality, trying to handle making
small steps toward knowledge. So just as manipulated the numerical series in the
first investigations of infinity.
Now we can say as epilogue that the natural philosophy is the philosophy of
the methodology of science. Nothing is assumed a priori, and this pragmatic sense
of reality is hidden in the methodology of science, the essence of our reality escapes
us completely, all that we hope to know is the structure, but the structure, viz the
simplicity in co-ordination etc, is our discovery and we can not identify reality with the
structure we gave it, the world is unknowable . There is no ultimate reality, the
reality is the scientific image we construct for it.

An example of metaphysics: the Pythagorean doctrine .

This text of D 'Abro is the epitome of positivism as described in the books of
philosophy:
....... The process of thinking of man passed three stages, three situations, the theological,
the metaphysical and the positivism. Metaphysics has no place, because it seemed to be vain
to ask for principles, substance, purpose in things . The human science must be limited to
the phenomena, to study with the intention to find their own laws, in order to predict and to
dominate, to benefit from the beneficial and avoid harmful. Our knowledge ensures the power
over nature as it had been thought up by Bacon and the English empirical. The most
remarkable of the problems dealt philosophy will find their effortless and natural solution in
the sciences. This is the meaning of positivism (Theodoridis).

But the metaphysical questions never end, and always follow the discoveries
of science, as science was born by the metaphysical searching. The men we now

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call scientists once called philosophers, and we know that Newton, the father of the
scientific method, apart from mathematics and physics dealt with alchemy and
theology, and the study of history in relation to the prophecies (David Ruelle).
This deep root of metaphysics is revealed very clearly in the comment of
Heisenberg
In this connection , one should particularly remember that the human language
permits the construction of sentences which do not involve any consequences and which
therefore have no content at all-in spite of the fact that these sentences produce some kind of
picture in our imagination; e.g the statement that besides our world there exists another world
,with which any connection is impossible in principle , does not lead to any experimental
consequence , but does produce a kind of picture in the mind . Obviously such a statement
can neither be proved nor disproved. One should be especially careful in using the words
reality, actually etc., since these words very often lead to statements of the type just
mentioned.3..

Such a world, an invisible world of our mind, is the world of mathematics in

the case of the Pythagoreans, this world exists in minds of many scientists until
today. Today many people of science are Pythagoreans.

THE PYTHAGOREANS .
What is the metaphysical view of the mathematical hypothesis?
There is un unspoken hypothesis which underlies all the physical theories so far
created, namely that behind physical phenomena lies a unique mathematical structure which
is the purpose of theory to reveal. According to this hypothesis , the mathematical formulae of
physics are discovered not invented, the Lorentz transformation , for example ,being as much
a part of physical reality as a table or a chair. ( RELATIVITY: THE SPECIAL THEORY
J.L.Synge p.163)

This "unspoken hypothesis" is a metaphysical hypothesis , the survival of the

Pythagorean doctrine that "everything is number", which nowadays is read
"everything is mathematics"
Indeed we read the same sentence as above (Synge) written seventeen
centuries ago:
.. The causal approach to nature consists in positing mathematical things as
causes from which the objects in the perceptible world arise. The Pythagorean belief was
that only what was possible in mathematics was possible in the structure of nature , and
3

Heisenberg: The physical principles of the quantum theory; University of Chicago, 1930;
p.15

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nothing could exist that implied a mathematical impossibility.Iamblichus

4o century

BC..
The doctrine that the number is the essence of all things, past through the
prism of countless philosophical currents, remains the central idea of Western science, the
necessary key of its coordination . And one more thing: the fact that this key opens many
locks, has praised many times but has not been explained (Berlinsky)

Besides, when Galileo proclaimed the great scientific revolution of the West,
saying that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics, again
formulated
mathematics

the same Pythagorean dictum, since

is

the

manipulation

of

numbers.

The number is the first principle says Pythagoras,

"something that can not be defined, incomprehensible,
and encompassing all the numbers." (Berlinsky)
The Pythagoreans were never able to explain what
they meant when they said that the number is the
essence of everything.
.. Pythagoreans, as they are called, devoted themselves to mathematics; they were
the first to advance this study, and having been brought up in it they thought its principles
were the principles of all things. Since of these principles numbers are by nature the first, and
in numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into
being -- more than in fire and earth and water (such and such a modification of numbers
being justice, another being soul and reason, another being opportunity -- and similarly almost
all other things being numerically expressible); since, again, they saw that the attributes and
the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in numbers; since, then, all other things
seemed in their whole nature to be modeled after numbers, and numbers seemed so be the
first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements
of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. (Aristotle
Metaphysics, I, 5)

The origins of this doctrine may be in the Eastern influence. Having traveled
to Egypt and Babylon, Pythagoras might have been influenced by numerology, which
deals with numbers and mystical relations among them, that was common in these
two regions.
The core of the Pythagorean doctrine is that number is the essence of things,
and more translated the mathematical design of nature, indeed very attractive! We
can understand every thing by numbers only as every object has a number that is
characteristic to it.
Philolaus (fourth century B.C.), a member of the Pythagorean school, is

reported to have said that all things which can be known have number; for it is not

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possible that without number anything can either be conceived or known.[Heath, p.
67].
Indeed throughout science,

discoveries were made after accepting a

reality as a natural equivalent of a mathematical object. The waves of Hertz

approached first by mathematics, and without the mathematical work of Green
Stokes etc., the Maxwell field would not get physical subsistence. Dirac actually
approached the relativistic electron as a mathematical object and discovered the
positron. Yet many believe that this mathematization of physics today, is its most
important tendency, and may ultimately be the last. How mush can we accelerate
hadrons at CERN; they wonder. How we shall approach reality beyond these limits?
Only with

the numbers of Pythagoreans? But we must not forget the ultimate

unknowable agent of the scientific explanation!

After the Pythagoreans the most influential group to expound and propagate
the doctrine of the mathematical design of nature was the Platonists, led, of course ,
by Plato. From here the distance until to the ideal world in which there were absolute
and ultimate truths

is very small. The later Pythagoreans and the Platonists

distinguished sharply between the world of things and the world of ideas that is the
inevitable termination of the metaphysical doctrine everything is number
But if we compare the description of D'Abro on the methodology of science,
namely the role of mathematics, given on pages 2, 3, this role is far from any
structure and substance of metaphysical status, viz i n

t h e m s e l v e s . Okey we

can describe the structure with mathematics , but structure is but an expression of
human appreciation (simplicity). On the other hand we can fabricate a mathematical
model for any object of our fancy. Our mind constructs the structure before the
mathematical model, (intuitionism) this model is our way of expression , as the
words for poets. Behind the supposed mathematical design of nature is hidden the
grand apparent

operational definition of concepts which is supported from

measuring, so from numerical indications.

For positivists, mathematics is a free creation of human mind, having their
own methodology, and may describe, or may not, some results of the domain of
experience. Mathematics is an hypothetical truth. They install axioms and produce
theorems: and so what? In 19O century , we had construct a mathematical model
of the ether, which is expelled from physics, It is not a physical object , although it
has a mathematical model.
So finally there are two worlds for humans, the invisible world of Pythagorean
(mathematics) and the visible world of senses, which worlds are not related. The

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model of Heisenberg is in front of us in the case of Pythagoreans. If we believe in the
unseen

world

we

are

metaphysicians,

if

not

we

are

positivists.

"... At all times there have been opposite tendencies in philosophy, and it would not
seem that these differences are nearing any settlement The reason is presumably that men
have different minds and that these minds cannot be changed. Men do not agree because
they do not speak the same language

and because some languages can never be

learned.Poincare

So there is no hope to expect agreement between positivists and metaphysicians.

Sources

The evolution of scientific thought A.D Abro Dover

Matire a Pense

Changeux-Connes

Infinity Ascent. A short story of mathematics

David Berlinsky,

Chance and Chaos David Ruelle T

1955
Janus Arthur Koestler
George Mpantes mathematics teacher
https://independent.academia.edu/GeorgeMpantes

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