Meyerson: Science and the “irrational”

MARIO MEYERSON: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

BIAGIOLP

SCIENCE AND THE “IRRATIONAL”

The concept of anomaly in philosophy of science and Meyerson’s concept of the “irrational” Meyerson in the context of French philosophy at the turn of the century Cosmopolitanism, Naturphilosophie, and the French institutional context Identity and the “irrational” Time, law, and teleology Anomaly, error, and the “irrational” The geometrization of efficient causality The difficulties of dialectical geometry Dialectic and conventionalism La deduction relativiste Success and decline Bibliography

5 9 13 15 18 21 23 26 29 30 34 37

1. The concept of anomaly in philosophy of science and Meyerson’s concept of the “irrational” THE NOTIONof anomaly in its crucial but ambiguous relationship to discovery

and conceptual change is probably the fundamental problem in the of scientific contemporary philosophy of science’ and sociology knowledge.* Such contemporary concern for the process of change, rather

*Office for Historyof Science and Technology,

University

of California,

Berkeley,

CA 94720,

U.S.A.

Received 17 December 1986; in revised form 24 March 1987. ‘This is particularly true in the case of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Stegmiiller’s more recent views; it applies in general to all those philosophers of science who have rejected the logical empiricists’ “statement view” of science and substituted for it models commensurable with Wittgenstein’s notion of “language game”. zA. Brannigan, The Social Basis of Scientific Discovery (Cambridge, 1981), D. Bloor, Wittgenstein: A Social Theory of Knowledge (New York, 1983), B. Barnes, T.S. Kuhn and Social Science (New York, 1983), are examples of this range of approaches. One common denominator - which they also share with Kuhn, Feyerabend and Stegmiiller - is the concern with the process through which a language game of a certain community is expanded. Stud. Hist. Phil. Sri., Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 5 -42, Printed

in Great

1988.

Britain. 5

0039-3681/88 $3.00 + 0.00 0 1988. Pergamon Press plc

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

than for the formal legitimation of scientific knowledge, has caused rejection of the dichotomy between the contexts of discovery and justification previously introduced by the logical empiricists.3 As a consequence, the concepts of anomaly and error have gained a positive status within contemporary theories of science.4 This is particularly evident in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, in which conceptual change is seen as produced by the solution of critical anomalies. But these anomalies are not presented just as instances of “hard reality” crossing the scientists’ path, but rather as linguistic artifacts produced by the articulation of the paradigm itself. Anomaly and error do not simply circumscribe scientific knowledge; on the contrary, they play a necessary, internal role in the process of its constitution.’ However, the role of anomaly and error in science’s method of production of new knowledge through synthetic judgment has long been the object of changing evaluations by different philosophers and scientists. For instance, Bacon related error to the “idols” which clouded the otherwise perfectly sharp sight of the philosopher-scientist. In Bacon - as with the alchemists - error was generally coming neither from “out there”, nor from the “theory”, but

‘In fact, if such a distinction were maintained, it would rule out the possibility of the discourse sought after by contemporary philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science. Such a rejection, and the subsequent difficulties of dialogue between philosophers of the logical is a good example of the incommensurability indicated empiricist tradition and the “Kuhnians”, by Kuhn during the process of theory change. 4This “redemption” of error and anomaly has taken place, to be sure, only at the level of the theory (philosophy, sociology, anthropology) of science. In the discourse of the scientist, they still maintain their negative connotation. In other words, the possibility of a new consideration of the role of anomaly and error can take place only after the separation of the discourse of the scientist and that of the theorist/historian of science. If the latter wants to concern him/herself with the identification of criteria of demarcation between science and non-science rather than with the analysis of the causes of scientific change, he/she would necessarily share the discourse of the scientist and the negative judgment about error and anomaly. The more “positive” consideration of the role of anomaly is due largely to the development of contemporary theories of science that use linguistic tools. Such theories approach science not as a set of statements, but - broadly speaking - as a Wittgensteinian language-game [for a brief comparison between the two views see W. Stegmiiller, ‘Accidental Theory Change and Theory Dislodgement’, G. Gutting (ed.), Paradigms and Revolutions (Notre Dame, 198O)l. It is by considering “reality” as a linguistic construction that anomaly and error are no longer perceived as a “mismatch” between theory and reality, but rather as linguistic artifacts. Science becomes the language-game of a professional tribe. Consequently, anomaly and error become associated with the “other” of the tribe, that is, not only “nature”, but also the other competitive, surrounding professional tribes, as shown by A. Brannigan, The Social Basis of.Scientifc Discoveries (Cambridge, 1981). Within this approach, the response to the anomalies in the theory and to the competing theories presented by the other tribes is analyzed according to Mary Douglas’ model of patterns of response to the threat of pollution from the “other”. See M. Douglas, Purity and Danger (London, 1966). ‘The symbiotic relationship between anomaly and discovery is well displayed m Kuhn’s difficulties in relating and at the same time differentiating the concepts of anomaly, normal measurement, discovery, and invention. See T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970), pp. 52 - 76, and ‘The function of measurement in modern physical science’, in: The Essential Tension (Chicago, 1977), pp. 178 - 224.

Science and The “Zrrational”

7

was rather the result of a “sinful” condition of the soul. With Descartes we find a much more complex notion of error, mostly because of the introduction of geometry as the “language” of his method. As a result, the linguistic “other” - all those features of the world which cannot be geometrized - is conflated with error itself, that is, with deception. This conflation is not accidental. Once the match between the language (geometry) and reality is ontologically assumed, one needs to “exorcise” the eventual disagreements by blaming them on the “other” (what falls outside the language, that is, secondary qualities) or on deception. Then, one considers secondary qualities as the causes of deception, so as to close the circle and to homogenize the “other”. The status and treatment of anomaly and error is then further crucially complicated by the integration of experimental method with the use of increasingly more complex instruments, as well as by the development of increasingly ramified theories which become the system of reference against which error is determined and evaluated.6 These examples all indicate that the concepts of error and anomaly were given a clearly negative connotation which they generally maintained in later positivistic theories of science. At best - as with Mach’s Erkenntnis und Zrrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung - we find a concern for error in terms of the search for a didactic method to prevent scientists from falling into it.’ Even Bachelard’s La formation de I’esprit scientifique: contribution a une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective, although presented as a “dialectical” theory of science, can be seen as reproducing the positivistic

6Both Bacon and Descartes were not paying attention to a crucial problem related to the status of anomaly and error. Bacon implicitly postulated a one-to-one relationship between word and thing or phenomenon in an idol-free context; while Descartes, by reducing matter to extension, avoided what we today call the problem of “correspondence rules”, which is the way we attach empirical content to a predicate. Evidently, by reducing matter to extension, Descartes could believe that coherence entailed correspondence. However, awareness of the “distance” between the mathematical model and the phenomena was soon to develop in the physical sciences also as a result of the development of increasingly more accurate scientific instruments. Similarly, in botany the dramatic increase in the number of known species exposed the artificiality of the systems of classification, that is, the distance between the name and the plant. In other words, both the and anomaly became less naive as a result of the awareness of the concepts of “fitness” impossibility of both the full deducibility of nature from a priori principles (Descartes) and the fitting all new specimens into a given fixed system of classification. Anomaly and error were no spiritual condition of the observer (Bacon), or to the longer simply related to a “sinful” incoherence following from the violation of the rules of the method (Descartes), but to the very process through which the empirical content of a theory is increased. One could see this new problem as a direct consequence of the notion of incremental knowledge introduced during the scientific revolution. In fact, it is from the commitment to a method which would produce new knowledge that one has to face the problem of the increment of the empirical content of a theory relationship between error and (synthetic knowledge). It is important to note the “symbiotic” content increase. ‘Ernst Mach, Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Ski.xen zur Psychologie der Forschung (Liepzig, 1926).

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

concern for the “vaccination” of young scientists against the disease of error.* A radically different approach is found in the philosophy of science of Emile Meyerson and in the related historical work of Alexandre KoyrC.g To these philosophers, the process of scientific change is dialectical, and error and anomaly do not need to be avoided or overcome: on the contrary, they represent the “other” necessary for the development of a higher synthesis.” In particular, Meyerson’s notion of the “irrational”, which he introduced in his Identite’ et realite’ (1908) and tried to integrate with Hegel’s notion of “difference” in his De I’explication dam les sciences (1921), seems to contain some of the themes of the contemporary philosophical debate about the role of anomaly and error in science.” In fact, it is not surprising to find that, despite the radical differences in the overall orientation of their thought, Kuhn

‘Gaston Bachelard, La formation de [‘esprit scientifique. Contribution a unepsychanalyse de la connaissance objective (Paris, 1934). The notion of “epistemological obstacle” is central to Bachelard’s philosophy of science, but its status is not altogether clear. At times he seems to suggest that the obstacle has a cognitive role in science, but finally - by presenting the (correct) - he implies that his notion of obstacle is “esprit scientifique” in terms of “esprit mathematique” not unlike Bacon’s idols. However, in a sense Bachelard turns Bacon’s notion of error upside down. In fact, to Bacon, error comes from the pollution of the pure mind, while to Bachelard the pure mind is dumb. Error comes from an incomplete or disturbed process of growth. That is why he wants to keep young scientists away from vicious philosophers. ‘Koyre’s belief in the dialectical nature of scientific thinking is evident in his claim that the history of science offers us many examples of correct results obtained from wrong assumptions. To him this is a clear indication that we do not simply propagate the truth of the assumptions (which would give us only an analytic judgment), but rather that we interact dialectically with error so to reach a truth which was virtually negated by the initial assumptions. An example is the series of “creative misunderstandings” between Descartes and Beeckman in their dialogue about the law of free falling bodies [Galileo Studies (Atlantic Highlands, 1978), pp. 79- 941. “Both Meyerson and Koyre played an important role in the revival of Hegelian studies in sur I’etat des etudes Hegeliennes en France’, France since the 1920s. See A. Koyre, ‘Rapport reprinted in his Etudes d’histoire de la pense’ephilosophique (Paris, 1961), and J. Wahl, ‘La role de A. KoyrC dans le developpement des etudes hegelienne en France’, Archives dephilosophie 23 (1965), 323-336; M. Kelly, ‘Hegel in France to 1940: a bibliographical essay’, Journal of European Studies 11 (1980), 29 - 52; and R. Salvadori, Hegel in Francb (Bari, 1974), pp. 71 - 75. I’ With the dialectical view of science, both Meyerson and KoyrC assumed the existence of some sort of superindividual mind whose coming-to-be constitutes the development of science. Consequently, much of the fundamental cognitive process behind scientific change remains opaque to the scientist himself. This view may have contributed to the later development of linguistic theories of science based on the assumption of a “tacit knowledge” (linguistic competence) through which scientists perceive and evaluate anomalies. Koyrt seems to be more sensitive than Meyerson on this issue, as he claims that the basic categories employed in scientific explanation are “comme aux rtgles de grammaire que l’on oublie au fur et a mesure que I’on apprend une langue, et qui disparaissent de la concience au moment mEme ou elles la dominent le plus” [‘Philosophie et theories scientifiques’, Etudes d’histoire de lapense’ephilosophique (Paris, 1961). pp. 233-234.1 This emphasis on the unconscious dimensions of scientific practice has probably helped to establish the contemporary distinction between the discourse of the theoristhistorian and that of the scientist. However, the distinction between these two discourses is not just a philosophical issue but also an implicit expression of mandarinism. In fact, both Meyerson and KoyrC seem to place philosophy above science, for reasons similar to those usually presented to justify the hierarchy of liberal and mechanical arts. In a sense, they transfer the same hierarchy of theory and practice in science to the relationship between theory about science and science.

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Science and The “Irrational”

acknowledged the influence of Meyerson’s work on the development of his own philosophy.” This analysis will focus on Meyerson’s articulation of the problem of anomaly and error in his notion of the “irrational” and on the role of the “irrational” in the explanation of scientific change. 2. Meyerson in the context of French philosophy

at the turn of the century

Meyerson’s work needs to be seen in the context of the interaction between neo-Idealistic critiques of science and positivism and the contemporary methodological crisis of science, which characterized the philosophical debate in France at the turn of the century. Born in 1859 in Lyublin (then Russia), Meyerson was educated in Germany where he studied industrial chemistry at the universities of Gottingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin. Soon after his arrival in Paris in 1882, he moved away from the chemical profession but maintained an active interest in the history of the discipline and in the growing debate about the foundations of chemistry and physics. I3 Coming from a different cultural background, and being an autodidact in philosophy, Meyerson did not feel at home in any particular French philosophical tradition and developed no affiliation with French academic institutions.14 Yet, the philosophical electicism that he was likely to develop from his own rich cultural background was further enhanced by his reception of different aspects of the philosophical debate about the problems of scientific knowledge that he encountered in France. The conceptual implications of the important scientific discoveriesI that followed after 1887, and the parallel debate on the “T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962), p. vi. I3During his stay in Germany, Meyerson became interested in the history of chemistry before Lavoisier. The work that most influenced him was H. Kopp’s multi-volume Geschichte der Chemie (Brunswick, 1845), from which he derived the belief in the fundamental role of the search for identity between causes and effects. His interest in the history of chemistry is confirmed by the content of all his papers before Zdentite’et realitd (see bibliography). 14However, in the preface to ZdentitP et real&’ he acknowledges a debt to Renouvier’s neoKantianism, as well as to Boutroux, Poincare and Duhem. He also mentions Bergson, whose ‘Perception et mat&e’, Revue de me’taphysique 4 (l&396), he often quotes. Although the core of Meyerson’s thought is certainly non-Bergsonian, we can find in Meyerson other ideas he borrowed from Bergson, for example that of the external reality as “memory”. However, the Bergsonian components were considerably reduced in De I’explication dam les sciences, and a few years later the two philosophers confronted each other with radically different views of Einstein’s theory of relativity. 15The Michelson-Morley experiment took place in 1887. In 1895, Roentgen discovered the X-ray. The subsequent researches of J. J. Thompson and E. Rutherford led to the discovery of the electron. Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium in 1896. Pierre and Marie Curie succeded in separating radium in 1898. In 1900 Max Planck introduced quantum theory, in 1905 Einstein presented his special theory of relativity, in 1908 Minkowsky proposed the fourdimensional space time continuum, in 1913 Bohr produced his model of the atom and in 1915 Einstein proposed his theory of general relativity.

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

10

foundations

of mathematicsI

philosophical scientists

critique

and

philosophy

and geometry,

of scientific

philosophers

and

were to become

methodology has

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the focus of a

involved the

both

agenda

French

of French

since.

Parallel

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geometry,

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explanation philosophers methodology which had

debate

on the

increasing

of

was

developing

among

like

Mach.

multifaceted

This

helped to reestablish lapsed into silence

Naturphilosophie institutional

foundations

awareness

began

to

of mathematics,

the

limitations

European crisis

logic,

of

and

mechanical

scientists

and

scientist-

in science

and

scientific

a dialogue between science and philosophy early in the century when science and

pursue

different

directions

in

respective

contexts.”

In France, the critique of science and the debate about its methodological foundations largely coincided and interacted with the neo-Kantian criticism of positivism attitudes

and of mechanistic of this criticism

the debate philosopher the necessary

about

and against

Emile Boutroux.‘* certainty

determinism

assumed

science

known

The forms

and

The beginning

of

back to the neo-Kantian

of mechanistic

laws was then accepted

by scientist-philosophers such as Henri who developed Boutroux’s Milhaud,” science that became

can be traced

His criticism

of physical

and explanation.

a wide range of patterns.

explanation

and of

in its broader

lines

Poincare,

Pierre Duhem, and Gaston contingentism into a philosophy of

as conventionalism.

Poincart mechanistic

developed Boutroux’s belief in the presence of a logical gap in explanation which gives room for the “free will” of the scientist.

Introducing

an idea that Meyerson

would later adopt,

- the basis of logical and mathematical demonstration was rather seen, or recognized as such, by the mind.

he claimed -

that identity

was not a given, but

He maintained

that it is

16Beginning with the “arithmetization” of mathematics started by Weierstrass and developed by Peano (Formulario, 1895), we then find Frege’s attempts to reduce arithmetic to logic, which were further elaborated by B. Russell and A. N. Whitehead. The development of non-euclidean geometries goes back to an earlier period, for Lobacevskij (1793 - 1856) published his results in 1826. “H Schnadelbach, Philosophy in Germany 1831-1933 (Cambridge, 1984), Chapter 3, ‘Science’, pp. 66- 108. “De la contingence des Iois de la nature (Paris, 1874), and Idee de loi naturelle (Paris, 1894). 19Among the works most frequently quoted by Meyerson or which bear on the development of his ideas we can identify: by H. Poincare, ‘L’espace et la geometric’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale, 1895, p. 638 ff.; La science et l’hypothbe (Paris, 1902). La valeur de la science (Paris, 1905); Science et me’thode (Paris, 1908); By P. Duhem, L’evolution de la mecanique (Paris, 1902); La the’orie physique (Paris, 1906); Les origines de la statique (Paris, 1905). By G. Milhaud, Les conditions et les limites de la certitude logique (Paris, 1894); Le rationnei (Paris, 1897); Le positivisme et leprogres de l’esprit: etudes critiques sur Auguste Comte (Paris, 1900); Etudessur la pensee scientifique (Paris, 1906).

Science and The “*Irrational”

11

because we see an identity propagated through a recursive demonstration that we assume its correctness without actually going through the whole sequence of n stages (which we could not generally do).20 Believing that, even within mathematics, we make synthetic judgments in the belief that they are analytic, Poincare displaced mathematical demonstrations from the domain of necessity into that of will. He then adopted the same view about the axioms of geometry: they are not adopted out of necessity but rather out of an “opportunisme inconscient”. There is no ontological relationship between geometry and nature or (unlike Kant’s assumption) between geometry and the mind. Geometry is made by the geometers - as Lobacewskij had demonstrated - and used because it allows for simple and economic demonstrations.2’ However, Poincare affirmed that there is a crucial difference between geometry and physics. We cannot arbitrarily apply geometry or mathematics to physics. Not all the assumptions or axioms are equally good; instead, we need to select them from our experience, which means that there is no necessary path from nature to its geometrical representation. As both he and Duhem put it, postulates are “idealizations of experience” .22 Following Boutroux in affirming the contingency of scientific laws, Poincare (with Brunschvicg and Meyerson) concluded that the experiential (or historical) component in the assumptions that scientists make when they apply mathematics to the description of natural phenomena precludes the possibility of any a priori determination of the future path of science. For the same reason, we cannot believe that science is one. Instead, it is constituted by a range of disciplines which all use mathematics, but with different assumptions about the empirical content of the symbols they use. Each discipline has its own method and defines its own “world”. Moving from the scientists to the philosophers, we find a range of different

“To Poincare, when we say that if a certain property belongs to the number 0 and to the successor of any number which has it, then it must belong to all natural numbers, we are making a synthetic rather than analytic judgment. To him the propagation of a given property from any given number to all natural numbers is not a necessary one, but needs to be recognized as such. See his ‘Raisonnement mathbmatique’, Revue de m&physique et de morale, Juillet 1894. ” It is interesting to note that the critics of the positivistic view of science used arguments that were put forward by a positivistic scientist and philosopher of science: Ernst Mach. In his Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung historisch-krittih dargestellt (1883), he already suggested that mechanical explanation appeared to be “the” form of explanation only because of the “economy of thought” it offered. u Duhem was very close to the position of Poincart, for in his La the’orie physique (Paris, 1906), p. 156, he affirms that: “La theorie physique est une construction symbolique de l’esprit humaine destinee a donner une representation, une synthese aussi complete, aussi simple et aussi logique que possible des lois que l’experience a decouvertes”.

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

critiques of science and positivism. Among these, Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian philosophy of science was certainly the most influential, informing the French philosophical debate on science from the beginning of the century until the Second World War. Brunschvicg attempted to modify the role of empirical experience in Kantian thought. We need to drop the idols of both rational and empirical evidence and to build real knowledge on a mutual adaptation of experience and reason so as to transform experience into thought in actuality, which would assure thought the control of empirical reality.” Mathematics and geometry are the instruments through which reason adapts itself to reality: “Nature challenges the mind, and the mind responds by developing mathematical sciences further.“% Unlike Kant, Brunschvicg did not believe that mathematical sciences progress only by arranging experience according to the a priori intuitions of space (geometry) and time (arithmetic), because - as shown by the development of non-euclidean geometries these categories change throughout history. Therefore, he claimed (as would Meyerson later) that it is to history that we need to turn if we want to study reason itself. This imperative was necessary because thought is judgment, judgment is action, and action can only be studied a posteriori,” as it is inscribed in history. As shown by his Les &apes de la philosophie mathe’matique (1912), Brunschvicg perceived a normative history within the apparently confused scenario of the history of mathematical sciences. The unifying pattern is that of the development of mathematical thought from its childhood (dogmatic pythagorism) to its adulthood (abstract mathematics, non-euclidean geometry).26 This belief in the creative component of mathematics that “reacts” to empirical reality by developing increasingly complex, noncommonsensical, highly interconnected structures (but structures never perfectly closed in themselves, totally interconnected, completely “true”)

23Les &apes de la philosophie mathe’matique (Paris, %Op. cit., p. 569.

1912), p. 498.

Is Here we can see the re-emergence of the Comtean belief in the possibility of an a posteriori identification of the laws of development of scientific thought. However, Brunschvicg does not believe that those laws need to be valid in the future. In fact, he categorically refused the idea that the future path of science could be inferred a priori from its past conditions. “Brunschvicg’s notion of a pattern of development of mathematical rationality from a “dogmatic childhood” to an “abstract adulthood” which constitutes the normative history of mathematical thought is clearly taken over by Bachelard.

Science and The “‘Irrational” would become a crucial component philosophies of science.27

3. Cosmopolitanism, Naturphilosophie,

13 of both Meyerson’s

and Bachelard’s

and the French institutional context

The philosophy of Meyerson was also certainly informed by other aspects of the French cultural context at the turn of the century, such as the philosophy of A. Lalande2* and the extensive production of works in the history of science.29 However, another range of more relevant influences can be traced to his German academic training as well as to his continuous interest - made possible by his unusual ease with languages - in the European developments of both science and philosophy. Although perfectly aware of the past failure (and the impossibility of a future revival) of Naturphilosophie, Meyerson clearly absorbed some of its concerns during his long period of study in Germany. He often quotes with critical sympathy von Hartmann, Spir, 0stwald,30 and Hegel, showing that what he retained from that German tradition was the concern for a global explanation (and not description) of nature. This influence, already present in Zdentite’ et realite’ (1908), would become more evident in his later De

“This is an important common denominator between the three philosophers. To Brunschvicg, mathematics does not “correspond” to empirical reality, but envelops reality in a network of relations without touching it. This conception follows from Brunschvicg’s tenet that concepts are relations among ideas and not things; it offered a potential instrument to deal with what was later called the problem of theoretical entities. In fact, through mathematics, we develop abstract concepts that can be thought of (and tested) only in relation with other concepts. This creates the problem of the theory-relatedness of the process of corroboration of that concept. Brunschvicg seems to suggest a test neither by coherence nor by correspondence, but rather through “interrelatedness”. This is a notion similar to coherence, but differing radically in the sense that it points to a sort of “total coherence”, that is, the test of the coherence of the concept at hand with the whole body of out (mathematical) knowledge. Bachelard’s “nouvelle esprit scientifique” is the embodiment of this search for mathematical abstractness and interrelatedness. 28Particularly, L ‘idee directrice de la dissolution opposee a celte de I’evolution darts la methode des sciences physiques et morales (Paris, 1899). In that dissertation, Lalande presents a critique of the concept of evolution, or at least of most of its unwarranted applications following the success of Darwin’s theory. To evolution he opposes involution, a tendency, shared by all natural things, to decay, to move toward a state of confusion, disorder, death. His use of entropy as an example of involution demonstrates an important similarity to Meyerson. “Beside Duhem’s works (see note 19), there was a revival in the study of the history of science, to which Meyerson himself contributed with a number of essays on the history of chemistry (see bibliography). Important historical work was also done by P. Tannery, A. Rey, Lenoble and G. Milhaud, and by historically minded philosophers like Brunschvicg. “‘Among the works most often quoted by Meyerson we find H. Lotze, Metaphysik (Leipzig, 1879). Grundzuege der Naturphilosophie (Leipzig, 1889), and System der Philosophie (Liepzig, 1874). K. Kroman, Unsere Naturerkenntnis (Copenhagen, 1883), Ostwald, Vorlesungen tiber Naturphilosophie (Leipzig, 1902), E. von Hartmann, Mechanismus und Vitalismus (1903), Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnistheorie (Liepzig, s.d.) and Neukantianismus, Schopenhauerianismus und Hegelianismus (Berlin, 1877), and A. Spir, Denken und Wirkhchkeit (Leipzig, 1873).

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

l’explication dam les sciences (1921), in which he attempted to articulate his notion of the interaction between “identity” and the “irrational” in terms of Hegelian dialectic. Moreover, his knowledge of English and Italian allowed him to read the late 19th-century English neo-Hegelians Caird, Bradley, Seth, Greene, Ward, Wallace, Stirling, MacTaggart and Baillie, as well as Croce and the Italian Idealists, easily predating the revival of Hegelian studies in France in the 1930s. Probably, the lack of a “canon” in the philosophy of science in France at the beginning of the century helped both the formation and then the reception of his philosophy. In fact - although quite original - Meyerson’s philosophy did not single out any irreducible opponent among the established French philosophical schools, with the important exception of positivism, which in any case was already under attack by the majority of influential French philosophers. The diversity of positions and of the institutional context3’ in which the debate took place probably made Meyerson seem less of an outsider than he actually was. In fact, he never held any academic post,33 but worked as foreign news editor at Havas News Agency until 1898, when he joined Edmond de Rothschild’s organization to settle Jews in Palestine, to become later the head of the Jewish Colonization Association for Europe and Asia Minor. His dialogue with the philosophical establishment was mostly maintained through his articles and books as well as personal contacts. His friendship with the influential neo-Kantian philosopher, Leon Brunschvicg, and with the historian of philosophy and Inspecteur General de 1’Instruction Publique, Dominique Parodi, certainly contributed to the sympathetic reception of

“Among the English neo-Hegelians, Meyerson often refers to C. Caird, Essays on Liter&we and Philosophy (Glasgow, 1892), F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (London, 1893), A. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality (Edinburgh, 1893, 2nd ed.), W. Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegels Philosophy and especially of his Logic (Oxford, 1894), J. H. Stirling, The Secret of Hegel (Edimburgh, 1896), M. Baillie, The Origin and Significance of Hegel’s Logic (London, 1901), J. Ward, The Realm of Ends (Cambridge, 1911). However, the author that he uses more extensively and sympathetically is J. M. T. E. MacTaggart, Studies in Hegelian Dialectic (Cambridge, 1896), and A Commentary on Hegel’s Logic (Cambridge, 1910). “‘The fact that the philosophy of science was not a discipline but rather a topic within the various philosophical schools is evidenced by the fact that the debate on the philosophical and historical aspects of scientific knowledge was carried on within the faculties of both science and philosophy and in such diverse journals as the Revue de me’taphysique et de morale, Revue scientifique, Scientia, and Revue philosophique de France et de I’elranger. “One of the reasons for this apparently unjustified exclusion could be seen in the fact that Meyerson did not have a French degree, which would have made him ineligible for an academic post. However, Meyerson was not an exception, showing that the professionalization of history and philosophy of science was still in progress. In fact, Paul Tannery held for his entire life various important posts within the state-owned manufacture of tobacco, Andre Metz was a general in the army, and Helene Metzger worked independently for a while before becoming the librarian of the Centre du Synthese in Paris.

Science

and The Irrational”

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Meyerson’s work. 34Other contacts were made through his sponsorship of an intellectual salon3’ where influential philosophers, historians of philosophy, and scientists met weekly. Among the usual participants we find Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, Helene Metzger, Alexandre KoyrC, Ignace Meyerson, Andre Metz, Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Henri Gouhier, Andre George, Salomon Reinach, and Vladimir Jankelevitch. The contacts so developed or strengthened proved to be reliable.36 4. Identity and the “irrational” In Identite’ et realitk, Meyerson presented a comprehensive theory of knowledge developed from the study of the history of science in which he sought “the laws which rule the human mind.“37 His findings suggest that causality is that “law” and that it explicates itself seeking identities or invariant aspects in the processes of change. Scientific laws are the result and not the cause of the mind’s natural tendency to seek causality in terms of identity. The critique of the positivistic conception of science is implicit in his notion of causality. Against the positivists, Meyerson affirms that science is not concerned just with the discovery of descriptive laws in order to develop a utilitarian ability of predicting and controlling nature. Instead, science produces laws under the pressure of the mind’s natural tendency to explain nature causally.38 The practical applications of science are the consequences and not the goal of the search for causal explanations. Meyerson believes it is the mind’s inherent causal perspective that leads us to assume the existence in nature of laws that we are not able yet to formulate. However, this relation between causality and law remains opaque to our consciousness. We do not perceive lawfulness as a belief, but as an “The friendship and the mutual intellectual respect between Meyerson and Brunschvicg made possible a dialogue despite their philosophical differences. Parodi dedicated a chapter of his influential La philosophic contemporuine in France (Paris, 1918), to “La critique du mecanisme scientifique” in which Meyerson played an important role. ‘*A. Metz, ‘Emile Meyerson’, Bulletin de la Sock% francoise de Philosophic 55 (1961), 103. 36Andre Metz wrote eight articles, three reviews, and a book on Meyerson, and Helene Metzger tried (unsuccessfully) to introduce Meyerson’s philosophy in the community of historians of science with various papers and reviews which emphasized the methodological relevance of his work. Lucien Levy-Bruhl edited his Essais, and Paul Langevin - one of the first and major French physicists to endorse Einstein’s theory of relativity - gave much of the technical information and insider’s perspective for the writing of La ddduction relutiviste. Finally, Alexandre KoyrC not only wrote extensively on Meyerson, but also incorporated many ideas of Meyerson in his very influential work in the history of science. “Identity and Reality (London, 1930), transl. of IdentitP et realitd (Paris, 1908), p. 8. “This same hierarchy is then transfered from science to the theory of science. In fact, Meyerson’s statement that the relationship between lawfulness and causality is that of the synecdoche also implies that the positivistic notion of science is comprehended and superseded by his own.

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of Science

observation. Consequently, we believe we discover laws when, actually, we produce them. The same unconscious causal perspective filters from the scientist’s consciousness the evidence of methodological paradoxes. Meyerson claims that “the truth is that science, if it treats of this particular motion, is forced to consider it as determined. But it does not, it indeed could not, affirm that it is so. “39 Or, quoting DuhemN and anticipating Koyre’s interpretation of the development of Galileo’s method,4’ he affirms that “it is impossible to understand the law, impossible to apply it, without performing the work of scientific abstraction, without knowing the theory it presupposes.“42 To see a law in nature is an act of will or - as Meyerson puts it - a limited miracle that the scientists perform to perceive the identity of causes and effects.43 Meyerson’s use of the term miracle is not surprising. His notion of law reflects necessity, while causality is associated with will and choice. He recognizes the origins of our unconscious “causal gestalt” in our basic need shared by animals as well - to defend ourselves through being able to predict. From the need to predict we unconsciously develop the need to believe in the existence of laws that would make that prediction possible. In other words, causality - as entailed in our mind - has an evident teleological connotation. It is - so to speak - our own “providence”. Miracles are attributed to the will to explain. Animals (and positivists) do not seek explanations and do not perform or believe in miracles. Causality therefore has two inseparable faces: lawfulness and teleology, which take up different forms depending on the discipline and the method involved in that particular cognitive task.44 Analysis of the structure of mechanical explanation exposes with particular evidence the workings of the “cunning of causality”. The origin of this form of explanation in its fundamental aspects can be traced to the development of atomism out of Eleatic philosophy. Leucippus and Democritus tried to explain the process of change through the displacement and spatial rearrangement of a fragmented Parmenidean being. Besides the division of being, this philosophy implies two other crucial and “9E. Meyerson,Identity and Reality, p. 26. “P. Duhem, La the’orie physique (Paris, 19Of$, p. 272. 4’A. KoyrC, Galileo Stud@ (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1978). 42E. Meyerson, Identity and Reality, p. 31. Meyerson’s “cunning of causality” shows analogies with Poincare’s, Comte’s, and Bachelard’s belief that the inaccuracy of the instruments plays a positive role in forcing the scientist to believe in the law he/she is trying to test. ‘30p. cit., p. 28. MWe can see here the influence of Renouvier, Brunschvicg, and Poincare on Meyerson. All of them maintained that there is no unity of knowledge; rather, each discipline, each different method defines a “world”. However, Meyerson introduces an important difference in the fact that he believes in the role of the explicatory concern of the mind as a unifying factor in all human knowledge.

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unnatural assumptions which are justified only by the desire for causal explanation: the identity of being in time, and the introduction of space as a medium for displacement which, at the same time, has the status of non-being. The non-being of space is the price paid for thinking of displacement as a kind of non-change. Meyerson seems to suggest that the non-being of space is an assumption one has to make to believe in the identity of being in time. In fact, it is only by immersing and moving the parcels of being in a perfectly inert, “sterile” medium that we can conceive of the being not undergoing any modification during displacement in time. Therefore, space needs to be defined as the perfect “irrational” of being, its “other”, that which is totally incommensurable (“non-reactive”) with it. The incommensurability of space and being is also the prerequisite for space to act as the divider of being. If this were not the case, the atoms would cohere into the unchanging Parmenidean sphere. Consequently, it is only through the assumption of the “irrationality” of being and space that mechanical explanation can be conceived. But such assumption is paradoxical, as shown by Democritus’ statement that “nothing is but atoms and void”, which implies that non-being (void) is. Identity in time “looks” natural but is not. Each time we make a judgment which implies identity in time, as in saying that a certain atom is the same (identical with itself) at different times, we unconsciously perform a “miracle” and filter out the paradoxical assumptions we are making about space. In other words, we are always making synthetic judgments which are unconsciously processed by our will to explanation and displayed as analytic to our consciousness. These and other explanatory features account for the success encountered by mechanical explanation throughout the history of science despite a range of other paradoxes it entailed.45 Together with the paradoxes, the mind’s explanatory will leads scientists to bridge other irrational gaps. For instance, the fundamental identities (the great principles of conservation), of which all laws are articulations, are perceived as “natural”, when instead they are “metalaws” which cannot be empirically tested, but only assumed. But, as shown by Carnot’s principle, not all the gaps of the “irrational” can be bridged by our mind’s postulating an identity between cause and effect. Carnot’s principle - later to be known as the second law of thermodynamics - which stated that the total amount of energy in a closed system is always the same but that energy tends to transform itself into less useful forms, allowed Meyerson to claim that nature’s state of continuous change excludes the

45Among those paradoxes were the instantaneous propagation of the effect (which means that the effect “jumps” space) and the puzzle of collision and elasticity, which contradicts the fundamental notion of extension.

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identity in time of any material object and, in particular, of causes and effects.46 Therefore, Carnot’s principle constitutes the fundamental “irrational” of human knowledge. 5. Time, law, and teleology

Identity in time has a special status in Meyerson’s view of science. As shown by his reading of the early theories of the atomists, identity in time is conceptually quite different from free displacement in space, simply because we cannot displace objects back in time. “Irrationals” of the kind the mind has to bridge to “see” identity in time and space are qualitatively different. While we can say that a certain object maintains its identity no matter where we put it (and we can “test” this by actually moving the object around), we can only believe that certain objects or processes are/were identical in time, for we cannot go back in time. From the special status of time within causal explanation, one can expect that a mind that seeks causal explanations, that is, that tries to establish the identity between antecedents and consequences, would tend - almost unconsciously - to exclude those entities which would upset this identity, this transitivity between causes and effects. In fact, to Meyerson, the history of science shows the progressive “elimination of time” from scientific formulas and he takes it to be a symptom of an invariant and unconscious tendency of the mind.47 The teleological connotation of the mind’s explanatory will that we considered earlier suggests the mind would see this peculiar behavior of time, and its implications for explanation, almost as a danger - as a cause beyond our control. In fact, by ruling time out of formulas, the mind would be allowed to believe and see the identity of the two terms of the equation in terms of free displacement in space. There would be a transitivity between those two terms, that is, between cause and effect. There is a tendency within the causal mind to move toward a full equilibrium, total explanation, control and prediction. Paradoxically, this would coincide with the end of explanation itself; it would be like going back to total unity, undifferentiation, stillness, exactly like the Parmenidean sphere the mind had to negate to begin its cognitive process. This “suicide of reason” is an “invariant” theme of Meyerson’s thought, although it takes different forms at different times. As he would later say in La delduction relativiste, 46S. Carnot Rej?exions sur la puissance motrice du feu (Paris, 1824). This definition of the principle of Carnot is taken from G. Holton, Introduction to Concepts and Theories of Physical Science (Princeton, 1985), p. 289. Meyerson’s most detailed analysis of the philosophical implications of Carnot’s principle is found in Identity and Reality, pp. 259-290. 47E. Meyerson, Identity and Reality, pp. 215 -233.

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science’s path to reality tends to acosmism, that is, the destruction of that same reality. However, this path back to the Parmenidean sphere cannot be achieved. There is a gap between increasingly more articulated and comprehensive identities and the total, Parmenidean identity of being. This pattern is not unlike the puzzling relationship between collision and adhesion. And it should not be so because collision is the “core” of mechanical explanation. The corpuscular theory rests upon action by contact. But there is no real contact between two bodies. When one body has collided with another it seems to have touched it, but this is an appearance. In reality, at the moment of the impact the particles nearest to one another have remained separated by quite appreciable distances. . . The two bodies may be brought more closely together, but then there is adhesion.“’

In other words, cognitive activity (mechanical collision) comes to an end with the Parmenidean sphere (adhesion) under the very tendency toward explanation (pressure of collision). It is as if cognitive stillness is reached as the extreme result of cognitive activity. But Carnot’s principle exposes the impossibility of bridging the final gap toward total identity through the elimination of time. In fact, Carnot’s principle, by showing the irreducible, irrational tendency of nature toward entropy, demonstrates that nature is not identical in time. It is the statement of an irresolvable difference; nevertheless, it shows that science (a non-mechanical science) can deal with processes in which identity in time is not preserved. Entropy is “irrational” to mechanicism only. Instead, if approached by our teleological reason, entropy becomes an orderly tendency (in the sense that it has a direction and a pace) which is “thinkable” but - at the same time - not understandable.4g Like the relationship between the same and the different in Plato’s Timaeus, the principle of Carnot with the uniformly changing “different” (entropy) gives us an image of the “same,” that is, of nature. Carnot’s principle is to mechanical explanation what uniform circular motion was to early Greek astronomy: it constitutes its unknowable but believable foundation. However, Carnot’s principle seems to have a double status. It represents the unknowable foundations of mechanical explanation as well as nature’s statement about our cognitive limitations. In fact, when we try to explain by imposing identities on nature, it “Op. cit., pp. 12-73. 49Meyer~on compares Carnot’s “irrationality” to Darwin’s notion of variation Darwin’s theory of evolution, change is postulated but its reasons are not explained. change for some reason that is as unknown as the cause of entropy.

because, in Species also

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yields itself to a certain extent, but it also resists. Reality rebels and does not allow us to deny it. Carnot’s principle is the expression of the resistance which nature opposes to the constraint which our understanding, through the principle of causality, attempts to exercise over iL5’ In attributing to nature the possibility of reacting to the attempts of human cognition, Meyerson seems to acknowledge his debts to Naturphilosophie. He is also trying to articulate the relationship between his notions of the “irrational” and that of teleological reason. How else could he account for the fact that Carnot’s principle is “irrational” to our reason, but that we can think of it and give it a formulation, except by assuming that we do so because we get a “message” from nature, a message that - as he puts it - we cannot deny?5’ With the introduction of nature’s will to react to us, Meyerson does not simply obtain nature’s prestigious endorsement of Carnot’s principle, but also establishes a correspondence between the teleological component in the mind’s causality, and a teleology that he perceives in nature, which also introduces a realist component in an otherwise fully conventionalist view of science. Although this link between nature and reason can be only hypothetical, it is significant because it introduces Meyerson’s strategy aimed toward the reevaluation of teleological thinking in science. Such a process begins in Identite’ et realit and is developed more fully with his Hegelian “conversion” in his later De I’explication dam les sciences (1921) and La debluction relativiste (1925). In fact, he gives to teleological reasoning5’ (which he calls efficient causality) a place in between scientific causality (the mechanical causality

Meyerson, Identity and Reality, p. 286. “We are facing here the usual dilemma (or paradox) “E.

of conventionalist philosophy of science which Meyerson inherited from PoincarC, Duhem, and Milhaud. The puzzle presented by Carnot is not unlike the usual problem of the status of anomaly. We “feel” an anomaly as something “different” or “irrational” from the “rational” laws we hold, yet we do not know what law could make sense of it. The conventionalists’ solution to the problem is a nominalistic one, which tries to reduce its arbitrariness through the introduction of choice-making parameters such as simplicity and economy. But Carnot’s principle is the necessary and - quite literally - fundamental anomaly (“difference”) at the base of Meyerson’s theory of knowledge, and a nominalistic account of its status would not quite do given the importance of the matter. Probably, for Meyerson, to say that we develop the awareness of Carnot’s anomaly because it is “convenient” would be like saying that one believed in the Bible because it is a “simple” or “intellectually economical” book. But Meyerson’s thought shows also some conventionalist attitudes, as exemplified by his inclusion of the principle of economy and simplicity among the parameters on which teleological thinking grounds its choices. What is most interesting is that he assumes the principle of least action to be an essential characteristic of nature. Consequently he can believe that there is nothing arbitrary in the conventionalist view which looks for “economical theories”. The economy of nature matches the economy of thought, so an economical theory is also “true”, not simply (and opportunistically) convenient. Meyerson’s conventionalism is the best “carrier” he can find for his imperfect teleology. 52E, Meyerson, Identity and Reality, pp. 308 - 319.

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which works with perfect identity of cause and effect) and theological causality (that which can perform miracles, or deduce all synthetic conclusions apriori). As we have seen, teleological or efficient causality is that which allows the scientist to bridge those irrational gaps in the chain of mechanical explanation and to perceive and give a representation to the “higher” irrationality of Carnot’s principle (but not to explain it, for such an explanation would be in the realm of theological causality). Teleological causality can perform small miracles, whose boundaries are well defined. It makes laboratory miracles. Efficient causality is to Meyerson’s philosophy what energeia is to the Aristotelean teleological system. But while, in Aristotle, energeia and the related teleological causality constitute the entirety of the cognitive paradigm, in Meyerson efficient causality acts only in symbiosis with mechanical causality, to filter out what would stop the machine (the synthetic component of the judgment). Efficient causality cannot violate or invent the laws of nature, but can only bridge their discontinuities. It does not deduce a priori all its synthetic judgments from the “fundamental principles of nature” (to which it has no access), nor is it on the same level as mechanical causality, which cannot handle a priori synthetic judgements at all. As Meyerson (problematically) puts it, efficient causality reaches synthetic judgments neither completely a priori, nor completely a posteriori. It seems as if Meyerson is trying, with his notion of efficient causality, to bridge what cannot be bridged, and it is not surprising to find that in his later work he drops this tripartite classification of causality and tries to replace it with the concept of dialectic to describe the interaction between identity and the different, the “irrational”. 6. Anomaly, error, and the “irrational” The crucial problem virtually ignored by Meyerson is that of scientific change. Under what circumstances are the various kinds of “irrationals” bridged? What are the considerations that allow the scientist to discern among this quite heterogeneous set of “irrationals”53 the ones that are worth bridging, the ones that instead are irreducible, and those whose bridging would end up in an error? In other words, how does efficient causality guide the scientist through this series of “irrational” choices? Meyerson’s unclear position on these issues becomes even more problematic once we notice how many crucial aspects of scientific thought and practice he “One could also add: (1) the various gaps bridged in order to be able to perceive the identity of cause and effect in logical, mathematical, and geometrical demonstrations; (2) Planck’s quanta; and (3) the conceptual difficulties entailed by action at a distance “jumping” the space between the two interacting bodies.

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assigns to the category of “the irrational”. In such a category we find, among others, (1) the gap between the mathematical form of a law and the physical phenomenon it is supposed to represent; (2) the gap between theoretical prediction and actual measurements; (3) the gap between object and sensation; (4) Carnot’s principle; (5) various kinds of gaps implied by the assumption of identity in time; (6) the paradoxical status of space in mechanical explanations; (7) conceptual gaps between low-level and high-level theories. Nowhere in Identite’ et realite’ can we find any satisfactory treatment of the problem; in fact, the very structure of the book is symptomatic of Meyerson’s confused and confusing position on these issues. The main actors of the book are the great principles of conservation, the fundamental identities around which the scientists’ cognitive activity takes place. In a strong sense, science is these principles, and the scientists are their keepers/managers. The narrative does not deal with the history of the development of these principles; instead, it presents a mosaic of scientific problems and successes tied to them. Neither persons nor instruments have an active role in the narrative. We are simply presented with statements they (at some time) uttered or measurements they (somehow) produced. The difficulties in deciphering Meyerson’s views about the dynamics of scientific change are increased by his unsystematic - although very insightful - analysis of the “professional rituals” through which scientists get to believe and then to apply the fundamental principles of identity.54 He seems to take efficient causality to entail some sort of teleological relevance that informs the selection of the irrational gaps to be bridged from those which cannot. However, this sense of teleological relevance can be only a very limited one. Otherwise, it would imply that efficient causality entailed a direction of progress which, instead, belongs to theological causality only. In fact, for Meyerson (and Brunschvicg) the possibility of knowing the direction of scientific change beforehand is coincident with the capability to deduce a priori all reality, and this can be done only by theological causality. These considerations suggest that the cause of Meyerson’s over-looking of the dynamics of scientific change is to be found in the paradoxical status of his notion of efficient causality. Efficient causality is supposed to guide scientific change by sorting out bridgeable from unbridgeable irrational gaps, errors of observation from anomalies and tenable deductions, but - at the same time - it cannot do so, it cannot trespass into the domain of theological causality. 54Probably this notion of Meyerson’s contributed to Kuhn’s development of the concept of paradigm and normal science, but the crucial difference is that Kuhn’s paradigm is a historical of the mind’s invariant artifact, while Meyerson’s principles of conservation are “emanations” tendency toward explanation. Similarly, although he describes the “professional ritual” implicit in the application of a certain principle of identity, he does not indicate a sociologically explainable pattern of behavior as does Kuhn, but rather a component of a natural (rather than professional) teleology.

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Consequently, Meyerson’s very vague analysis of the diverse forms of the “irrational” we have encountered is probably a result of his inability to dissect them with the dull tool of efficient causality. In a strong sense, they are the “irrational” not only of science, but of Meyerson’s philosophy of science as well. Also, these considerations indicate a fundamental relationship between anomaly, error, and progress. Without criteria of demarcation for anomaly and error, progress cannot be thought of. Conversely, without a notion of progress - or with a skeptical attitude about it - anomaly and error become either a matter of subjective judgment or a philosophically unproblematic issue.55 The difficulties in Meyerson’s explanation of scientific change offer a good example. His notion of efficient causality does not allow him to develop either a “thinkable” concept of progress or parameters for the evaluation of the “irrational”. Moreover, his strong anti-positivistic, anti-utilitarian attitude prevents him from accepting a more humble, Baconian, empirical notion of progress (and error). To him, real knowledge is explicative and not predictive or descriptive. It is found in the articulation of more comprehensive identities and not in the increase of the number of applications of a given principle of identity. Those applications are already “entailed” by that identity. The direction of the cheminement of knowledge cannot be confused with the direction of its utilitarian applications. By claiming, as he does, that a good error, or a new “irrational” is cognitively more relevant than many solutions, he clearly rules out the possibility of an empirical notion both of progress and of error. It is with this range of “irrationals” in his philosophy that Meyerson approached De l’explication dans les sciences. 7. The geometrization of efficient causality The development of Meyerson’s philosophy between Identite’ et real&! (1908) and De l’explication dans les sciences (1921) shows an articulation of the concept of the “irrational” in relation to the analysis of efficient causality and of the role of geometry and mathematics in science. In Zdentite’ et real& Meyerson was looking at the foundations of science rather than at its method. In that book, he did not limit his analysis to mathematical sciences, but also considered chemistry and biology, trying to show that the search for identity of cause and effect constituted the invariant “For instance, an Aristotelean taxonomist would believe that any specimen encountered will fit the given classificatory scheme. Certainly many specimens will not, but he/she would not perceive that as an error, an anomaly, or a conceptual problem. It would be a practical, mechanical, “normal” matter. The concept of progress being outside his/her mental dictionary, he/she is prevented from conceiving the concept of error.

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character of scientific explanation in all disciplines. In that work, Meyerson almost adopted a “substantial logic” which looked at causality as a transfer of a substance (identity) between cause and effect. New laws were obtained by “pouring” some principle of conservation into a new branch, a new articulation of that identity. It did not really matter whether the new “branch” was developed through mathematico-geometrical thinking or if it was simply represented in that notation. By emphasizing the role of efficient causality he was de-emphasizing that of mathematics and geometry. Quite probably, it was the success of Einstein’s ideas that forced Meyerson to revise his position on the role of mathematics and especially of geometry. If in 1907, when he was completing Identite’et reaktti, he might have overlooked the almost contemporary presentation of the special theory of relativity, he could do so no longer in 1921, six years after Einstein’s introduction of the general form of his theory. Although Meyerson dealt with the philosophical implications of relativity in La de’duction relativiste (1925), it is evident that De I’explication was also informed by Einstein’s work.56 According to Meyerson, by adopting Minkowsky’s suggestion of the fourdimensional time - space continuum, Einstein not only relativized the notion of time, but also reduced universal gravitation to inertia. The fact that it was the physical interpretation of a concept of non-euclidean geometry that made possible Einstein’s synthesis probably made Meyerson aware of the creative role of mathematics in science. Using the hindsight given by reading La deduction relativiste, I believe that Meyerson began to see in the internal development of geometry the answer to some fundamental questions raised by his concept of efficient causality. In particular, the development of geometry seemed to entail that teleological direction within science which he needed in order to account for the selective treatment of “irrational gaps” and anomalies during the cheminement of scientific thought, and the explanatory (rather than descriptive) tendency of scientific knowledge.57 The association of geometry with scientific thinking implied a drastic revision of Meyerson’s concepts of identity and the “different” or “irrational”. If in Identite’ et real&‘, identity was of causes and effects in general, with De I’explication dam les sciences and particularly in La 56Meyer~on had a discussion with Einstein at a meeting of the Societt francaise de Philosophie on 6 April 1922, and in the dialogue he showed he had followed the debate about the theory of relativity at least since 1911’s Conseil de Physique. The proceedings of the discussion between Einstein and Meverson is found is Bulletin de la SociPte’ francaise de Philosophic 22 (1922), 91- 113. Moreover, in De I’euplication dam les sciences we already find many references to Einstein and to Minkowsky’s introduction of the four-dimension space - time continuum. “Meyerson’s effort to integrate teleology and geometry was quite similar to Aristotle’s unsuccessful attempt to determine the “genus” of geometry in order to integrate it with his form/ genus related physics [see T. L. Heath (tr.), Euclid’s Elements (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 114- 1511.

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relativiste, he moved toward causes and effects that could be represented with geometry. From a “substantial logic” he moved to a spatial one. The mind with its will to causal explanation was made to coincide with an evolving geometry which reduced an increasingly wide range of physical phenomena to spatial relations. Similarly, the “irrational” was no longer any sort of irreducible gap between cause and effect, but became geometry and discipline-related. Even the evaluation of the irrationals - a task he previously attributed to efficient causality - was now attributed to geometry’s own But the recognition of the creativity of “teleological” development. mathematical and geometrical thought was a direct challenge to another fundamental notion of his philosophy: the fixity of reason, codified in the will to causal explanation through identity.” In fact, most of the inconsistencies found in De I’explication dans les sciences can be attributed to the irreducible tension between the appeal to an evolving geometry (though not in the Darwinian sense5g) and the assumption of the fixity of reason. These tensions are well displayed by his interpretation of Hegel’s notion of dialectic. In 1921, Meyerson’s philosophy of science was at a crucial juncture. The of Minkowsky’s and Einstein’s physical philosophical implications interpretation of non-euclidean geometry tended to refute his nonevolutionary theory of science. At the same time, the successful integration of the role of geometry could not only save it, but would also solve some of its pre-existing problems, such as the articulation of efficient causality. It is in this context that we need to evaluate Meyerson’s apparently paradoxical but probably necessary (almost desperate) attempt to develop a dialectical view of science by means of a “dialectical geometry” which developed itself through the interaction with the different, with the “irrational”. Therefore, the main reason for Meyerson’s rediscovery of Hegel was an internal one.6o deduction

‘a He often quotes the work of L. L&y-Bruhl, especially Lesfonclions mentales dans /es soci&?s inje’rieures (Paris, 1910), to support his assumption about the fixity of reason in the form of the search for causal explanation through identities. He also dedicated an essay to the relationship between his notion of casuality in science and that described in LCvy-Bruhl’s work: ‘Le physicien et le primitif’, Revue philosophique de France et de Mtranger, 109 (1930), 321- 358. S91 do not mean “evolving” in the Darwinian sense, for Meyerson (like Brunschvicg) seems to think that geometry “responds” to the “environment” (physical problems) by changing itself so to solve them, but that these new developments are not “tested”. There is no “selection”. It is an “unrolling” of geometry rather than an evolution proper. 60This evaluation is supported by Meyerson’s selection of the authors he uses in his “interpretation” of Hegel. The major ones, MacTaggart, Trendelenburg and Hamelin, are either non-orthodox (Hamelin) or clearly critical toward Hegel’s fundamental notion of concrete reason, especially Trendelenburg, who is considered not only an unorthodox Hegelian, but even an antiHegelian [see L. Colletti, Tramonto delf’ideologia (Bari, 1980), pp. 104- 1251. Evidently, Meyerson’s selective interest in Hegel did not develop ex nihilo; rather, he approached Hegel’s philosophy with a well-defined problem in mind.

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of Science

8. The difficulties of dialectical geometry The first difficulty that Meyerson the dialecticity of mathematical and orbitisplunetarum, Hegel stated that to the essence of things. There mathematics and physics:

had to face was Hegel’s own dismissal of geometrical thinking. Since his early De mathematics and geometry do not belong is an incommensurable gap between

The lines which geometry introduces to construct the demonstrations of its theorems cannot be taken to be forces or directions of forces. . . Therefore we cannot confuse that which belongs to mathematics’ cognitive procedures with that which belongs to those of physics by associating a physical reality to relations whose reality is only mathematicaL6’

Later, in Phenomenology and in Logic, he further articulated this position, showing that mathematics and geometry cannot be dialectical because they do not inhere in reality. Consequently, their concept of “difference” is also nonreal, non-substantial, merely a formal difference superficially projected by geometry and mathematics on reality. Hegel also insisted that the difference between the mathematical models and physical reality is not that of the thinkable different resolvable through a dialectical process. Mathematical demonstrations are not conclusive because the genus of mathematics is alien to the objects to which it is applied. The existence of different demonstrations for the same theorem proves their non-necessity. To Hegel, knowledge is knowledge of causes, and mathematical laws are not the causes of the phenomena they describe. Moreover, he does not view the use of empirical evidence for the confirmation of a physical law as philosophically tenable.62 Meyerson agrees with Hegel’s critique of mathematical science because it is like his own attitude toward the positivistic view of science which (mis)takes laws for explanations. To him, Hegel’s only error, causing him to develop his wrong-headed Naturphilosophie, was his failure to see the “irrationals” of mathematical sciences. He then compares his notion of the “irrational” to Hegel’s concept of and claims that: “difference”, What we indicate with the concept of the “irrational” is found, in Hegel, split in two components. One is said to fall within the domain of concrete reason, and therefore to be “thinkable” (Vernuenftig), and deducible from the very essence of

6’G W F Hegel Le orbite dei piuneti (Bari, 1984), (trad. tran&iou of’De or&s pluneturum (Jena, 1801).

A. Negri),

pp. 5-7,

Italian

“Here we find another analogy between Hegel’s and Meyerson’s thought. Hegel’s lack of interest in the empirical confirmation of physical laws implies that he does not consider predictive power to be a fundamental characteristic of science.

Science and The “‘Zrrational”

21

that reason. The rest is instead rejected outside the domain of that deduction. Certainly, it can be known, but by a lower form of knowledge, that is, by experience (empiria), which Hegel excludes from the domain of true science ( Wissenschaft).63 Meyerson, instead, believes that science is based on and deals continuously with that irrational, non-deducible residual that Hegel displaces from Wissenschuft into empirical knowledge. To him, that residual is precisely the “irrational” he introduced in ZdentitP et reufite’.M Through this reading of Hegel’s idea of “difference”, Meyerson develops a range of radical interpretations of his thought. By adopting some aspects of Trendelenburg’8’ and MacTaggart’s66 criticism of Hegel’s notion of dialectic and concrete reason, he claims that the dialectical synthesis of the same and the different can take place only in the presence of a “something else” introduced by the mind to put both the (otherwise immobile) same and the “other” in a state of flux. Evidently, Meyerson sees that “something else” as the mind’s ability to bridge “irrational gaps”, which he has been assuming since Zdentite’ et realitk. To Meyerson, this “something else” is necessary to preserve both the “explanatory will” of the mind and the irreducibility of nature. To him, the new articulation of a concept cannot be contained totally within the concept itself and its “difference” because, as shown by Carnot’s principle, that “difference” changes continuously. Unlike Trendelenburg, Meyerson probably thought of the “something else” (his “will to explanation”) as necessary not to put both “the one” and its difference in motion, but to allow “the one” to “catch up” with an already moving process of differentiation. It is nature’s permanent state of change that implies its nondeducibility and introduces the irrational residual which cannot be integrated

63E. Meyerson, De I’explication duns les sciences (Paris, 1921), Vol. 2, pp. 34- 35. @Meyerson affirms that in the Logic, Hegel does not seem to rule out the possibility of applying the dialectical method to geometrical reasoning. Although in general Hegel puts geometry and arithmetic in the domain of abstract rather than concrete reason, at times - as noted by G. Rosenkranz [Hegel als deutscher Nationalphilosoph (Leipzig, 1870), pp. 113 - 114, quoted in E. Meyerson, De I’explication duns les sciences (Paris, 1921), Vol. 2, p. 481 - he used arithmetical concepts to exemplify his dialectical method. Meyerson sees this “anomaly” in Hegel’s thought as a tacit acknowledgement of his partial awareness of the fact that mathematics and geometry also deal with some kind of necessary “difference”. 65“L’Ctre pur, dit ce philosophe, est l’immobilite; le non-etre, qui est toujours Cgal a lui-m&me, est Cgalement l’immobilite. Comment de l’unite de deux representations immobile le devenir mobile peut-il naitre?. .la pensee, en operant cette union, tree autre chose, c’est done qu’elle apporte Cvidemment cet Clement different et qu’elle introduit subrepticement le mouvement, afin de mettre en flux l’&re et le non&re.“, A. Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen (Berlin, 1840). Vol. 1, p. 25, quoted and translated in E. Meyerson, op. cit., p. 62. 66MacTaggart’s exclusion of time from the concept of reality and the consequent atemporality of the process of thought perfectly fits Meyerson’s concern to maintain the identity of reason in time. Op. cit., p. 64.

28

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

by a concrete reason that is alien to it. However, this gap is actually bridged by that “something else”, as proved both by the successful development of science and the symmetric failure of Naturphilosophie. His claim that the history of science offers a de facto refutation of Hegel’s notion of concrete reason, together with his assumption of the continuous and non-knowable change in nature, places serious limitations on Meyerson’s alleged Hegelianism. In fact, he follows MacTaggart in dismissing the existence of concrete reason (Vernuft), and claims that science develops out of abstract reason (Verstand) which is forced to accept reality as it is without being able to transform this acceptance into a better understanding of it.67 The belief in a continuously changing reality leads Meyerson to dismiss another crucial notion of Hegel, that of the unicity of the representation of the world. He conflates the changing “differences” or “irrationals” resulting from nature’s continuous change with those generated, instead, by the use of different methods of inquiry. Consequently, he agrees with Brunschvicg and Poincare that different disciplines at various times define a range of “worlds”, or “identification schemes”. This is shown by the emergence of different kinds of “irrationals” in different disciplines at different times (like Carnot’s principle, Darwin’s variation of species, and Planck’s quanta). According to Meyerson, the identification scheme is taught scientists during the professional training in their specific disciplines. It then becomes their unconscious matrix of cognitive activity. For instance, a mathematician will be taught to see a* - b* as “identical” to (a - b)(a + b) by sifting out the various “gaps of identity” encountered during the algebraic derivations. As a result, the demonstration is perceived as a sequence of equations. In a similar fashion, a geometer is taught to bridge the “irrationals” peculiar to his/her discipline. For instance, it is as a result of training that the geometer comes to view spatial displacement as a kind of transformation that does not alter the identity of the figures being considered. It is through this kind of tacit knowledge that he/she perceives geometrical demonstrations involving displacements of points, lines, and planes as sequences of geometrical identities. The analogy between Meyerson’s identification scheme and Kuhn’s paradigm is tempting, but the content of the two notions is radically different. The identification scheme is more of a passive filter and less of an active gestalt. By excluding the various paradoxical gaps, the identification scheme

6’ “Or, cette raison concrkte, la Vernunft, en tant que principe supkrieur a la raison abstraite et rkglant d’une maniere essentiellement diffkrente que ne le fait celle-ci le tours de nos pens&es, n’existe pas. Ce que Hegel a d&ore de ce nom, c’est la raison tout court (ou raison abstraite, Verstand, selon sa nomenclature), aprlts son premier compromis avec la realite extkieure.” Op. cit., p. 60.

Science and The “‘Irrational”

29

allows the scientist to perceive an already existing identity of causes and effects.68 9. Dialectic and conventionalism The lack of any historical example of the dialectical nature of scientific change suggests that Meyerson’s attempt to incorporate Hegel’s dialectic into his philosophy is largely a “symbolic act” which attempts an impossible mediation between his belief in the fixity of reason and scientific change. Once put in this context, even the notion of the “irrational” begins to be perceived as a philosophical fiction, as a byproduct of Meyerson’s belief in the fixity of reason. Reinforcing what was said before, I think that the “irrational” is the “other” not of scientific thought, but rather of Meyerson’s identity-based philosophy of science. Like Democritus’ space (non-being) which surrounds the particles of being, allowing them to move and yet to remain identical to allow reason to move unchanged themselves, Meyerson’s “irrationals” through its cheminement and to form new patterns of thought by linking identities (conceptual atoms) to other identities. It is not by chance that the two notions of the mind’s invariant will to causal explanation and of the “irrational” are given by Meyerson the same ontological status that Democritus gives to atoms and void.69 The fact that - despite his claims - Meyerson’s view of scientific thought is hardly dialectical in an Hegelian sense is confirmed by the similarities between his views of the role of mathematics and geometry in science and those of the neo-Kantian Brunschvicg and the conventionalist Poincare. In particular, Brunschvicg’s belief that “nature challenges the mind and the mind responds with a further development of mathematical sciences”7o seems to be an apt epitome of Meyerson’s philosophy of this period. Brunschvicg gets around the problem of correspondence between mathematical theory and empirical evidence by replacing it with interconnectedness. Empirical content is surrounded (or even besieged) by an 68Probably sharing the conventionalists’ interest in the notions of simplicity and economy of thought, Meyerson seems to present the identification scheme as a “simplicity-maker”. He may well consider simplicity as an attribute of nature because of the teleological link he assumes between thought and reality. In fact, economy of thought is the mental equivalent of the “path of least resistance” often encountered in the behavior of nature. Therefore, conceptual simplicity meets the simplicity of nature. The presence of the notion of simplicity at this later stage of Meyerson’s philosophy may be symptomatic of his problems in articulating his notion of efficient teleology. @But, in distinction to the atomists’ notion of the void, Meyerson’s “irrationals” are given a teleological connotation. They seem to be tools of some superhuman telelogical design that employs them as roadblocks in preventing the mind’s will to causal explanation from reaching ucosmism - the cognitive analogon to the Parmenidean sphere. But, as noted above, this teleological dimension of the “irrational” is left unarticulated. “L. Brunschvicg, Les e’tapes de la philosophie mathdmatique (Paris, 1912), p. 569.

30

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

increasingly articulated and interconnected network of mathematical relationships which do not touch it, but do not “let it go away”. It relates the a priori (mathematical/analytic) with the a posteriori (empirical/synthetic) without having them touch, allowing Meyerson to believe tenable his problematic notion of an efficient causality that is neither a priori nor a posteriori. To say what efficient causality is would mean to describe how the a priori and the a posteriori meet, and Brunschvicg, by claiming that there is an interaction but not an actual contact, saves Meyerson from a problematic confrontation with the fundamental tension of his philosophy. Meyerson can easily elaborate on Brunschvicg’s ideas and claim that what bridges the gap from analytic to synthetic, from essence to existence, cannot be a mechanical touch, a collision, but must be an act of the mind’s energeia.” Then, through this invisible but “energeietic” shield between reality and mathematics, he can also save his belief in the fixity of reason. Reason does not change in its interaction with reality because it does not touch it. The new empirical problem/evidence is not integrated by reason, but answered “at a distance”. As in Aristotle’s theory of perception, the object does not constitute sensation, but - through the senses’ energeia - triggers an internal cognitive process. This irrational gap allows Meyerson also to maintain the unity and fixity of reason while acknowledging the diversity of scientific disciplines and their related methods, the existence of “irrationals” and various knowledges. As he states in La deduction relativiste, the form and the content of reason are two distinct things. It is easily understandable that Minkowsky’s and Einstein’s physical interpretation of an abstractly developed non-Euclidean geometry was perceived by Meyerson as the paradigmatic example of the relationship between abstract reason and the development of science. 10. La dkduction relativiste By 1925, the theory of relativity was the inescapable experimenturn crucis for contemporary philosophies of science, and, in many ways, Meyerson’s La delduction relativiste passed the test. Probably, De I’explication dans les sciences was well received also because it was quite difficult to falsify. The massive erudition - an impressive number of circumscribed examples and quotations dispersed throughout a 784-page sea of non-synoptically arranged chapters - acted as an effective sedative on critics, but probably did not

” This is a recurrent theme in Meyerson’s philosophy. Perception is ofmovement and cannot be explained mechanistically (for a movement cannot be the “law” of another movement; there must he a gap between the two levels). Perception needs to be explained by a “metamovement”, that is, by a teleological feature of the mind.

Science and The ‘irrational”

31

always win their active support. Whether or not the structure of that work was an unconscious blueprint of the crisis of Meyerson’s thought, it certainly sheltered more than articulated the philosophy he had introduced in Identite’et realit&. La de’duction relativiste did not solve the crucial problems of his previous works, but it certainly used effectively the concepts he had developed there. The recurrent problem he had to face was that of the relationship between mathematics and reason or mind. Scientific reason needs quantities to be operationally manipulated and used in inferences, and the mathematicization of reality produces these quantities.72 Therefore, mathematics and geometry are the changing product and not the fixed cause of scientific explanation. Under the pressure of the mind’s will to explanation, new notions of space are developed to enrich the range of physical changes that can be reduced to displacement. Einstein’s theory of relativity with its reduction of gravitational force to inertia, that is, to an entity which can be described in terms of motion of matter in space, becomes a perfect example of this tendency. Einstein’s “destruction of material reality” through the translation of material features of reality into spatial ones particularly fits Meyerson’s antimechanistic, anti-empirical intellectual preferences.73 Relativity displays science’s tendency toward acosmism. The will to total explanation through identity directs science toward a sort of Parmenidean sphere which in this specific case takes the form of a total reduction of everything to space, that is to nothingness.74 blocked by a new But the new road to acosmism was “providentially” specific form of the irrational: Planck’s quanta. The “manifestation” in the theory of relativity of the mind’s constant tendency toward acosmism and to a non-mechanical explanation of physical reality confirms the continuity between Newtonian and Einsteinian science so important for Meyerson’s assumption about the identity of reason in time. Further confirmation of this continuity is offered by the fact that Carnot’s principle survived the theory of relativity unchanged. The irreversibility of time and the fundamental gap associated with the belief of identity in time is

“Moreover, the process of quantification of qualities generates irrationals because translation between qualities and quantities (for example, between quantitative/mechanical qualitative/teleological thinking) cannot be total. As usual, for Meyerson, these irrationals

the and are

necessary. ‘)For instance: “it is not paradoxical that Einstein by modifying the propertiesofspace, could in this way explain the movement that Le Sage attributed to the intervention of a material agent”, E. Meyerson, The Relativistic Deduction, p. 67 (emphasis mine). 14Science tends to explain physical phenomena by representing, moving, and recombining them as immaterial geometrical points or lines in space. It also tries to reduce continuous changes in time to an infinite addition of infinitesimal discrete points by means of the calculus.

32

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

fully

preserved.75

Time

is relativized,

but

“one

cannot

telegraph

into

the

largely

to

past.“76 Even maintain

the distinction the identity

between

mind

and geometry

of reason in time. Geometry

is introduced

is the perfect tool to suggest

new, aprioristically geometry

deduced “irrational gaps” for the mind to bridge. But can only suggest and not bridge them. The passage from essence to

existence, from potentiality to actuality, is the domain of the mind’s will (or energeia). In fact, Meyerson’s introduction of the mind - geometry distinction coincides with his renunciation of the hope of developing a dialectical geometry. In La dehluction relativiste, Meyerson still flirts with Hegel, but no longer with his notion of dialectic. He claims that Einstein’s space-time continuum is Hegel’s “Idea”, for it presents a view of reality that is observer-independent and is a concept of space that gets inside things (to the point of destroying their materiality). The success of relativity is evidence of the constant realization of the Idea, in the Platonic sense of the term. Despite incessant contradictions inflicted on it by reality, the Idea tends to impose itself upon our conception of reality - to force reality to enter into the mold of the Same (which was the task Plato attributed to his demiurge), however unsuitable the mold might be to receive this reality - and to some extent it succeeds in this incredible undertaking. This process, moreover, resembles the one whose image is presented to us by human history, according to Hegel, since this history was supposed to consist essentially of the translation of ideas into concrete events by men and peoples entrusted, unbeknownst to them, with accomplishing this realization.” But, interestingly

enough,

an Idealistic interpretation

he also claims that it would be difficult to develop

of the theory of relativity:

[Tlhe task of the philosopher will be particularly arduous in this case, for the return to an idealism based on sensation will obviously be all the more difficult, given the fact that physical theory has moved away from the conscious self. The distance separating them is particularly great in relativism [theory of relativity].” The reasons for Meyerson’s ambiguities are once more related to his need to distinguish the mind from its tools and constructions, represented in this case by the geometry-based physical theory of relativity.

“To Meyerson, the popular interpretation of Einstein’s theory which takes it to imply the transitivity of the flow of time is seen as “folk evidence” of the mind’s unconscious will to exclude time from causal explanation. This reminds us of Meyerson’s belief that Carnot’s principle was almost boycotted and at least recognized very slowly by physicists “blinded” by their unconscious will to believe in the transitivity of time in causality. ‘6E. Meyerson, The Relativistic Deduction, p. 251. “Op. cit., p. 196. “Op. cit., p. 53 (emphasis mine).

33

Science and The “‘Irrational”

Such a distinction is a device to create a “mental space” (or at least a line) between the scientist’s mind and the theory it produced, in order to save the identity of reason in time by displacing it along that line. This is evident from his statement that we can now more clearly identify manifest - or to be more specific,

what became of this Idea when it was no longer where it took refuge

when it disappeared from

science. It was lodged in the mind of the scientist.79

Meyerson seems to suggest that the Idea is in its potential state when in the scientist’s mind, and that it actualizes itself (under the pressure of the will to explanation) in the development of geometry-based scientific theories. Evidently, the Idea is something superindividual and metascientific. It does not coincide with either the individual mind or a specific theory, but it is that which allows one to bridge the “irrational” gap between them. By giving the Idea such a function, Meyerson makes the problem of the “irrational” not only unsolvable, but even inarticulable. Why, for instance, is a certain geometrical concept developed and/or interpreted in physical terms? Or, more specifically, why did the theory of relativity come about? As in IdentitP et realit&, Meyerson cannot answer these questions for he cannot articulate the process of scientific change, other than by giving an opaque picture of a sort of teleological dialogue between the mind, geometry, and empirical evidence under the supervision of the Idea.” Certainly, Meyerson’s philosophy is a remarkable edifice, often aesthetically pleasing, and historically relevant for its criticism of the ‘9Op. cit., p. 196 (emphasis mine). *‘The same problematic attitude is necessarily mirrored in his ambiguous evaluation of the role of experiment and empirical evidence. To him, it is experimentation that prevents the mind from falling into the error of taking essence as existence (analytic for synthetic knowledge), as in Descartes’ case. However, he then goes on to present different experimental evidence as completely incommensurable, or “irrational” with the theory at hand. Empirical evidence is presented as either unambiguous messages from nature or as an “irrational” which only the mind’s will to explanation can bridge. For instance, he claims that: “although experience has certainly played a very large role. . it is not the most important factor. experience was not free; it served reason and obeyed reason’s aprioristic propensities” (The Relativistic Deduction, p. 192), but also that: “certainly experiment has played a quite considerable role in this case [the development of relativity] as it has in the history of science as a whole” (op. cit., p. 158) or that: “It goes without saying that the role of observations. . .is to serve as points of departure for reasoning. It is because we want to use them to create a concept of totality. .that we so ardently pursue the consistency that constantly eludes us. This explains why the substitution of a theory for another is frequently the result of a new fact or series of facts” (op. cit., p. 229). Therefore a theory is not refuted, but simply dropped because the mind recognizes that the Idea is better embodied in another theory. In other words, facts enter the system only ut the bottom, triggering our senses to bridge the irrational gap between object and sensation. Thereafter, the theory develops abstractly. According to Meyerson, scientists consider facts to test their theories because they want to do so. Evidently, he tries to maintain empirical knowledge at the bottom of the cognitive hierarchy, but cannot do so, and therefore reintroduces it as an act of the mind’s will and not as a result of external necessity.

34

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

positivists’ naive dismissal of the role of anomaly and error in the process of the constitution of scientific knowledge. However, it offers few heuristic suggestions to scholars concerned with a more detailed analysis of the process of scientific change. Meyerson’s emphasis on the identity of reason in time would literally paralyze a historian or philosopher who would attempt to translate Meyerson’s philosophy into a historiographical approach. For instance, Meyerson’s identification scheme can be seen correctly as the synchronic representation of the state of the history-independent Idea in a certain discipline at a certain time. The only historical dimension of the identification scheme is the articulation of the mathematico-geometrical tools it contains. But even this is only partially so, for it is taken to be the offspring of the invariant (and opaque) mind’s will to explanation. 11. Success and decline Identite’et realite’was well received by French philosophers and in particular by Bergson. ‘I With that work, Meyerson established his reputation both as a philosopher and a savant in the history of science. However, judging from the number of reviews and essays, it does not seem that Meyerson’s ideas were widely debated.s2 With the publication of De I’explication dam les sciences, and of the English and German translations of Zdentite’ et Realite’,83 but especially of La deduction relativiste, we find a remarkable number of reviews, essays, and books on his work.84 Some of them are found in literary journals and popular magazines introducing “Meyersonism” in literature and art or sharing with the readers the pleasures of “Une heure avec Emile Meyerson”. Then, after 1933, the year of Meyerson’s death and of the publication his last book,86 we find a sudden diminution in the number of publications about his work, while the posthumous publication in 1935 of his Essais, a collection of previously published papers, went practically unnoticed.” The increasingly successful reception of Meyerson’s work up into the midthirties may be explained by the cultural context in which it occurred. The success of Identite’et realite’ is not surprising, if we consider how it fitted the

” H. Bergson, ‘Rapport sur IdentitPet realitPd’E. Meyerson’, SPances et travaux de I’AcadPmie des sciences morales et politiques, 23 January 1909. *‘From 1908 to 1920 we find about 14 reviews of and essays on Meyerson’s work. “E. Meyerson, Identity and Reality (London, 1930), and Identitkt und Wirklichkeit (Liepzig, 1930). 841n the 1921- 1927 period we find 37 items against the 76 we find in the 1928- 1935 period. “A. Chevalley, ‘Meyersonism’, Saturday Review of Literature, 5 (1929), 1171- 1175; F. Les nouvelles litteiaires, 6 November 1926. Lefevre, ‘Une heure avec Emile Meyerson’, 86E. Meyerson, Reel et ddterminisme duns laphysique quantique (Paris, 1933). It is the printed version of a long paper presented by Meyerson a few years before in Paris. *‘From 1936 to 1945 we find only 6 publications on Meyerson, and 16 more since.

Science and The “Irrational”

35

pervasive anti-positivistic tendencies of French philosophy of the time. Moreover, the thesis of Identite’ et reafite’ was in many respects close to the French leading conventionalist philosophy of science of Poincare, Milhaud, and Duhem. De I’explication dans les sciences did not introduce any major change in his philosophy, but definitely confirmed his status as a savant both of the history of science and of philosophy. Certainly, the concern with the creative role of mathematics introduced there made his coexistence with the neo-Kantians easier. Meyerson’s peak of success as a philosopher of science came with La deiiuction relativiste, a work endorsed by Einstein and Langevin and understood as having refuted Bergson’s philosophical reading of relativity in his Duke et simultan&t&. The reasons for the decline of interest in Meyerson’s philosophy were related to the direction of the development of both history and philosophy of science in that period. Some reasons were early felt, others became more significant only in the 1930s. In 1913 Isis was founded and was soon followed in 1918 by Archeion. Before then, the Revue de Synthbe had already introduced sections on the history of science edited by the positivistic historian and philosopher Abel Rey. The editorial policies of those journals indicated that the paradigm of the increasingly professionalized history of science was differentiating itself from that of the philosophy of science. As shown by Abel Rey’s essay on De l’explication dans les sciences,” Meyerson’s use of historical evidence to substantiate the cheminement of the Idea in time was considered to be more erudition than history. The increasing marginalization of Meyerson from the new paradigm of history of science can be seen in his unimportant position in the Comite International d’Histoire des Sciences founded in 1929 on the occasion of the Premier Congrts International d’Histoire des Sciences in Paris. Also the section of history of science established within the newly founded Centre de Synthbe fell under the control of Abel Rey. Important changes were also taking place in the philosophy of science. In 1919, the conventionalist Milhaud was replaced by the positivist Abel Rey in the chair of History and Philosophy of Science at the Sorbonne, marking the very beginning of the crisis of conventionalist philosophy of science that would become evident at the end of the 1920s. By then, the so-called logistic *“‘Car l’erudition de M. Meyerson est considerable. Et nous sommes en presence d’une gigantesque accumulation de faits historiques. Mais. on a peu a peu l’impression que l’historien accumule des faits historiques, a peu prts tous objectifs et certains, et pourtant ne fait pas une histoire objective. Ce que nous disons des morceaux d’histoire des sciences que nous trouvons dans I’argumentation de M. Meyerson, morceaux qui sont tous tres bons en soi, mais dont le retablissement dans la trame historique pourrait peut-etre, comme le contexte d’une citation en modifier la signification reelle, nous pouvons le dire des morceaux d’histoire de la philosophie qui, avec les precedents, font le gros de I’ouvrage”, in: A. Rey, ‘A propos De I’explication dam les sciences’, Revue de synth&e historique 32 (1921), 124- 125.

36

Studies in History and Philosophy

movement be known

-

the followers in France

of the philosophy

and

also

contributed

philosophy in the 1930s. The Vienna journals like the Revue de Synth&e, articles by Carnap, the two philosophies

Franck,

Hempel

is evident

of the Vienna to the

Circle -

eclipse

of Science began to

of Meyerson’s

Circle also found a warm reception in which, after 1934, began to publish and Schlick.

in a later historical

The incompatibility account

logistic movement who attributed its delayed success popularity of the philosophy of Poincare and Meyerson:

by a member in France

between of the to

the

Meyerson himself, owing to his early technical training, has often remained. . . at a stage of thinking which contemporary physics has long since outgrown; in this branch of science he has too often been obliged to resort to the confidences of some research worker playing the truant out of his laboratory and ill-prepared for philosophical considerations. If, on the other hand, his partial realism, his perfectly Aristotelean substantialism - giving him a justified and sufficient outlook when dealing with chemistry such as it was in 1880 - were subsequently fortified by his long and painstaking inquiries, one may suspect that he was but ill-trained for seeing anything beyond that. Yet the perusal of Meyerson’s work remains profitable, but for other reasons and from a different standpoint.@ The introduction of the philosophy of the Vienna Circle in France, mostly after the Congres de Philosophie Scientifique in Paris in 1935, may have been another cause of the declining interest in Meyerson’s work. The neopositivists’ rejection of any metaphysics and their lack of interest in the “context of in which, according to their standards, most of Meyerson’s discovery” concerns would fall, ruled out any possible dialogue between the two philosophies. Conversely, with his permanent dismissal of problems of confirmation and refutation of scientific theories, Meyerson showed that he was not at all interested in the neopositivists’ major concern, the “context of justification”. The 1930s saw as well a process of institutionalization within non-analytical philosophy of science. In 1932 the first graduate program in history and philosophy of science was established at the Sorbonne with the foundation of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques de 1’UniversitC de Paris, of which Abel Rey became the first director.” In 1940, Bachelard - a student of Rey and Brunschvicg with very strong opinions against Meyerson’s emphasis on the identity of reason in time - followed Rey as the director of

89M. Boll and

J. Reinhart,

‘Logic

in France

in the twentieth century’, M. Farber (ed.), New York, 1950), p. 199. M. Boll is of the rnanifestos and declarations of the Viennese school of

Philosophic thought in France and the United States (Albany, the editor of French translations thinkers. 901n 1934, the institute began to publish the journal year saw the publication fo Bachelard’s Le nouvelle

Thales, and Rey became its editor. The same esprit scientifque.

31

Science and The “Irrational”

the Institut. Probably Bachelard’s influence on the next generation (that of Canguilhem) of historians and philosophers of science contributed to the decline of interest in Meyerson’s work among younger French philosophers of science. Moreover, the revival of Hegelian philosophy in France during the 1930s did not sustain interest in Meyerson’s ideas. Although he had been one of the first French philosophers to reevaluate Hegel, his non-dialectical interpretation of Hegel seems not to have been well received by the new generation of Hegelian philosophers. A further reason for the decline of Meyerson’s philosophy can be located in the crisis of the notion of causality associated with the developments of contemporary physics. He tried to face the new challenge in his last work, R&l et dtiterminisme dans la physique (1933), but the result was seen more as a compromise than as an articulation of his previous positions. Finally, an institutional factor also influenced the sudden reduction of the debate on Meyerson’s philosophy immediately after his death. Without an academic post, Meyerson did not develop a school which could have further articulated his philosophy. Of the two authors who had been strongly influenced by his views, one, Helene Metzger, died in 1944 on the way to Auschwitz, the other, Alexandre KoyrC, although very active and influential both in France and in the States, did not teach in degree-awarding institutions. Acknowledgements especially

Martin

- I would like to thank Ernest Coumet, Jay for their comments on this paper.

Pietro

Redondi

and

Bibliography Books by Meyerson Identite et realite’ (Paris 1908). English trawl., Identity and Reality (London, 1930). German transl., Identitat und Wirkhchkeit (Liepzig, 1930). De I’explication duns les sciences (Paris, 1921). La deduction relativiste (Paris, 1925). English transl., The Relativistic Deduction (Boston, 1985). Du cheminement de la pensee (Paris, 1931). Reel et determinisme duns la physique quantique (Paris, 1933). Essais (L. Levy-Bruhl, ed.), (Paris, 1935). Essays by Meyerson ‘La coupellation chez les anciens juifs’, Revue scientifique 47 (1891), 756 - 758. ‘Explanation’, Encyctopaedia Britannica, 14th edn, Vol. 8, 984- 986. ‘Hegel, Hamilton, Hamelin et la concept de cause’, Revue philosophique de France et de I’etranger 96 (1923), 33 - 55. ‘Jean Rey et la loi de la conservation de la matihe’, Revue scientifique 33 (1884), 299 - 303. ‘Theodore Turquet de Mayerne et la decouverte de l’hydrogene’, Revue scientfique 42 (1888), 665 - 670. ‘Les mathematiques et le divers’, Revue philosophique de France et de I’etranger 117 (1934), 321- 334. ‘La notion de l’identique’, Recherches philosophiques 3 (1933 - 1934), 1- 17. ‘Paracelsus et la dtcouverte de l’hydrogene’, Revue scientifique 47 (1891), 796.

38

Studies in History

and Philosophy

of Science

‘Y a-t-i1 un rythme dam le progres intellectuel ?‘, Bulletin de la Societe' Francaise de Philosophic, fevrier-mars 1914, 91 ff. ‘Le savoir et l’univers de la perception immediate, Journal de psychologie 31 (1934). ‘Philosophie de la nature et philosophie de l’intellect’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 41 (1934), 147 - 181. ‘Le physicien et le primitif’, Revuephilosophique de France et de I’etranger 109 (1930), 321- 358. ‘La science et le systemes philosophiques’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 23 (1916),

203 - 242. ‘Le sens commun

et la quantite,

Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 30 (1923),

206-217. ‘Le sense commun

vise-t-i1 la connaissance?,

Revue de metaphysique et de morale 30 (1923),

13-21. ‘La tendance

apriorique

et l’experience’,

Revue philosophique de la France et de I’etranger, 49

(1924), 161- 179. ‘Teorie naukowe a rzeczywistosc, Prezeglad filozoficzny 17 (1914), 289- 314. ‘De I’analyse des produits de la pensee, Revue philosophique de la France et de I’e’tranger 59

(1934), 135 - 170. Works on Meyerson [The

following

bibliography

is an extension

of the bibliographies

included

in T.R.

Kelly,

Explanation and Reality in the Philosophy of Emile Meyerson (Princeton, 1937), and in G. Mourelos, L’epistemologie positive et la critique Meyersonienne (Paris, 1962)l. Abbagnano, N., La filosofia di E. Meyerson e la logica dell’identita’ (Napoli, 1929). Abbagnano, N., ‘Emile Meyerson: Du cheminement de la pensee’, Logos 15 (1932), 109 - 112. Abele, J., ‘Emile Meyerson. Reel et determinisme dans la physique quantique’, Archives de philosophie 10 (1934), lOO- 105. Anthony, R., ‘Meyerson (Emile). De I’explication duns les sciences’, Revue generale des sciences 32 (1921), 685 -687. B. D., ‘Emile Meyerson. Identite et realitr?, Revue de philosophie 12 (1912), 601- 605. B. E., ‘Emile Meyerson. Zdentite et realite’: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 24 (1909), 119. Bc. A., ‘La deduction relativiste’, Revue scienttfique 64 (1926), 221. Bc. A., ‘Zdentite et realite par E. Meyerson’, Revue scientifque 65 (1927), 383. Beirao, L., ‘Filosofia critica de Meyerson’, Rivista portoguesa de Filosofia 14 (1958), 113 - 122. Bergson, H., ‘Rapport sur Zdentite’ et Realite d’E. Meyerson’, Seance et Travaux de I’Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 23 January 1909. Berkowitz, A., ‘Identitlt und Wirklichkeit’, Archiv ftir systematische Philosophie 15 (1909), 433 - 439. Berthoud, A., ‘Meyerson. La deduction relativiste’, Revue generale des sciences 36 (1925), 214. Blumberg, A. E., ‘Emile Meyerson’s Critique of Positivism’, The Monist 42 (1932), 60-79. Boas, G., A Critical Analysis of the Philosophy of Emile Meyerson (Baltimore, MD, 1930). Boas, G., ‘Identity and Reality’, Journal of Philosophy 28 (1931), 19. Boas, G., ‘Zdentitat und Wirklichkeit’, Journal of Philosophy 28 (1932), 15 - 20. Boas, G., ‘Du cheminement de la pensee. Emile Meyerson’, Journal of Philosophy 29 (1932)

554 - 556. Boas, G., ‘Essais, Emile Meyerson’, Journal of Philosophy 33 (1936), 663-665. Boll, M., ‘Emile Meyerson. Du cheminement de la pen&e’, Mercure de France, 1 October 1931, 42, 443 - 449. Boll, M., ‘Memento’, Mercure de France, 15 March 1932, 43, 685. Boutaric, A., ‘La philosophie de M. Emile Meyerson’, Revue hebdomadaire 41 (1932), 370- 377. Boutaric, A., ‘Quelques aspects philosophiques de la physique quantique’, Revue scienttfique, 13 January, 72 (1934), 6- 11. Brunschvicg, L., ‘La philosophie d’Emile Meyerson’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 33 (1926), 39-63. Bryson, K., ‘The Metaphysics of Emile Meyerson: A Key to the Epistemological Paradox,’ Thomist 37 (1973), 119- 132. Busco, P., ‘Science at idealisme. A propos de la philosophie d’Emile Meyerson’, Revue generale des sciences 38 (1927), 101 - 105. Capek, M., ’ Einstein and Meyerson on the Status of Becoming in Relativity’, Actes XZe Congres

Znternationale d’Histoire des Sciences, 1965. M., Introduction to The Relativistic Deduction (Dordrecht,

eapek,

1985), pp. xxiii-Liii.

Science and The ‘irrational”

39

Challaye, F., ‘Un philosophe europeen: M.Emile Meyerson’, Europe 3 (1925), 97- 101. Chevalley, A., ‘Meyersonism’, Saturday Review of Literature, 5 (1929). 1171- 1175. Cohen, R. S., ‘Is Philosophy of Science Germane to the History of Science? The Work of Meyerson and Needham’, Proceedings of the 10th Internotional Congress of the History of Science (Ithaca, 1962), pp. 213 - 223. Colantino, S., ‘Emile Meyerson e il problema dell’identico e de1 diverso’, Sophio 23 (1955)

82 - 96. Costello, H. T., ‘Zdentite et real&?, Journal of Philosophy 22 (1925), 637 - 643. Dalbiex, R., ‘A propos de Lo deduction relativiste’, Revue dephilosophie, 34 (1927), 181-202. Dandieu, A., ‘La philosophie d’Emile Meyerson et l’avenir du rationalisme’, Europe 29 (1932),

633-641. Denti, M. A., Scienzo e filosofia in Meyerson (Firenze, 1940). Dujovne, L., La Filosofia y 10s teorias cientifcos, la rozon y lo irrational (Buenos Aires, 1930). Einstein, A., ‘A propos de La deduction relotiviste de M. Emile Meyerson’, Revuephilosophique

de France et de I’etranger 105 (1928), 161- 166. Enriques, F., ‘E. Meyerson, Du cheminement de la pensee’, Scientia 51 (1932), 366 - 368. Enriques, F., ‘Essais par Emile Meyerson’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 44 (1937) supplement, 1. Evola, J., ‘E. Meyerson. La deduction relativiste’, Bilychnis 14 (1925), 339. Ewald, O., ‘Zdentite et realit@,Kantstudien 14 (1909), 525 - 527. Forest, A., ‘Du cheminement de lapensee, par E. Meyerson’, Revue thomiste 15 (1932), 431- 447. Frolich, R., ‘E. Meyerson Zdentitat und Wirklichkeit’, Blotterfur deutsche Philosophie 1(1933),

162- 163. Gaultier, J ., ‘Identite et bovarysme’, Mercure de France, 1 October 1923, 167, 67 - 103. Gillet, M., ‘La philosophie de M.Meyerson: etude critique’, Archives de philosophie 8 (1931),

1-116. Gillet, M., ‘Du cheminement de lo per&e par E. Meyerson’, Archives de philosophic 8, 26 - 59. Gillet, M., ‘Un philosophe francais qui disparait, M. Meyerson’, Etudes 1934, 195 - 211. Ginzburg, B., Identity and Reality’, The Nation, 131 (1930), 383 - 384. Gregoire, A., ‘La philosophie scientifique d’Emile Meyerson’, Revue des questions scienfifiques

53 (1934), 338 - 384. Grison,

M., ‘M. E. Meyerson

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Comte’,

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338 - 384. Habert, ‘Un nouveau conceptualisme’, Revue de philosophie 21 (1921), 662- 682. Zdentitat und Wirklichkeit’, Monotshefte fur Mathematik Hahn, H., ‘Emile Meyerson,

und Physik 37 (1930), 31- 33. Du cheminement de la pensee’, Monatshefte fur Mathemotik und Hahn, H., ‘E. Meyerson. Physik 40 (1933), 1 - 2. la marche vers l’identite’, Revue de philosophique d’Emile Meyerson; Harpe, J., ‘L’oeuvre theologie et de philosophie 13 (1925). 278 - 287. Hartmannn, E., ‘Du cheminement de lopensee, par E. Meyerson’, Philosophischer Jahrbuch 47 (1934), 115. Herzfeld, K., ‘The Philosophy of Emile Meyerson’, Thought 8 (1933), 90- 106. Hicks, G. D., ‘Identity and Reality’, Hibbert Journal 28 (1930), 549 - 550. Hicks, G. D., ‘Zdentite’et realite’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 20 (1912), supplement, l-2. Hillman, O.N.,

‘Emile

Meyerson

on Scientific

Explanation’,

Philosophy of Science 5 (1938),

73 - 80. Hoffding, H., ‘Emile Meyerson erkenntnistheoretische Arbeiten’, Kantstudien 30, 484- 494. Johan, R., ‘La raison et l’irrationnel chez M.Meyerson’, Recherches philosophiques, 1 (1931- 1932) 138- 165. Keeling, S., ‘Philosophy in France: the Doctrine of M.Emile Meyerson’, Journalof Philosophical Studies 1 (1926), 93 - 100. The Monist 44 (1934) 296- 305. Kelly, T. T., ‘Meyerson and the Epistemological Paradox’, Kelly, T. R., Explanation and Reality in thePhilosophy of Emile Meyerson (Princeton, 1937). ‘Die Kritik der Wissenschaft in der modernen franzosische Philosophic’, Koyrt, A.,

Philosophischer Anzeiger 1921, 37 - 52. KoyrC,

A.,

‘Die

197-217.

Philosophie

Emile

Meyersons’,

Deutschfranzosische

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40

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Lalande, A., L’epistemologie de M.Meyerson et sa port&e philosophique’, Revue philosophique de France et de I’etranger 93 (1922), 259- 280. de France et de I’etranger, Lalande, A., ‘Une philosophie de I’intellect’, Revue philosophique 1937. Lalande, ‘La deduction relativiste et I’assimilation’, Revue philosophique de la France et de /‘&ranger 51 (1926). 161 - 189. Lalande, A., ‘Remarques sur Le cheminement de lapensee’, Revuephilosophique de France et de I’etranger, 114 (1932), 105 - 128. Ledesma, R., ‘El causalismo de Meyerson’, Revista de occidente 25 (1929), 368 - 374. Lefevre, F., ‘Une heure avec Emile Meyerson’, Les nouvelles litte’raires, 6 November 1926. Lichtenstein, L., ‘Die Philosophie von Emile Meyerson’, Berichten der mathematisch-physischen Klasse der Sachsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Liepzig, 80 (1928), 275 - 85. Lichtenstein, L., ‘La philosophie des mathematiques selon Emile Meyerson’, Revue de philosophie de France et de I’e’tranger 51 (1932), 169 - 206. Lichtenstein, L., ‘Meyerson, Emile. Du cheminement de la pensee’, Erkenntnis 3 (1932- 1933), 429-431. Loewenberg, J . , ‘Meyerson’s Critique of Pure Reason’, Philosophical Review 41 (1932), 351-367. McGregor, D. A., ‘De I’explication dans les sciences by Emile Meyerson’, Anglican Theological Review 9 (1929), 273-275. Maisonneuve, L., ‘Meyerson Emile: Identite’et realite’, Polybiblion 75 (1912) (second series), 387. Manzoni, C., L’epistemologia di Emile Meyerson (Rome, 1971). Marcucci, S., ‘Filosofia, scienza e storia della scienza in Emilio Meyerson’, Physis3 (1961), 5 - 19. Marcucci, S., Emilio Meyerson. Epistemologia e filosofia (Torino, 1962). Marcucci, S., ‘Legalita’ e causalita’ scientifica nella interpretazione di Emilio Meyerson’, Physis 5 (1963). 105 - 119. di Meyerson e’ ancora attuale?‘, Physis 18 (1973), 73 - 86. Marcucci, S., ‘L’epistemologia Marvin, F. S., ‘Du cheminement de lapensee par Emile Meyerson’, Nature, 129 (1932), 42-43. Metallman, J., ‘Emil Meyerson’, Odbitka z Przegladu Wspotezesnego, Nr. 142 Luty i Nr. 143 mars 1934, 1- 15. Metz, A., ‘La philosophie scientifique d’Emile Meyerson’, Revue generale des sciences 37 (1926), 16-20. Metz, A., ‘Les grandes theories physiques d’aprts M. Emile Meyerson’, Revue scientifique 64 (1926), 581- 588. Metz, A., ‘La science et la raison dans la philosophie de M. Meyerson’, Mercure de France 1926, 186 (37), 280- 303. Metz, A., ‘Emile Meyerson et la critique de la raison’, Revuephilosophique de Louvain 27 (1927) 64-88. Metz, A., ‘La philosophie de la nature de Hegel d’aprts M. Meyerson’, Mercure de France 15 aout, 1927, 198, 61-69. Metz, A., ‘Le principe de Carnot d’aprts M. Emile Meyerson’, Revue des questionesscientifques 11 (1927), 37 - 58. de M.Meyerson et le positivisme’, Etudes 190 (1927), 434- 447. Metz, A., ‘La philosophie Metz, A., ‘Le principe d’inertie: son histoire et son interpretation d’apres Emile Meyerson’, Revue generale des sciences 37 (1927)) 209 - 2 12. Metz, A., Une nouvelle philosophie des sciences - le causalisme de M. Emile Meyerson (Paris, 1928), reviewed by H. Metzger, Isis 11 (1928), 149. Metz, A., ‘A propos de La deduction relativiste de M.Emile Meyerson’, Revuephilosophique de la France et de l’etranger, 105 (1928), 161- 166. Metz, A., ‘Une logique nouvelle’, Mercure de France 233 (1932). 605 - 621. Mercure de France 235 (1932) 506- 507. Metz, A., ‘A propos de M. Emile Meyerson’, Revue philosophique de France et de Metz, A., ‘Ouvrages sur la philosophie d’E. Meyerson’, II&ranger 116 (1933), 119- 127. Metz, A., Meyerson: une nouvelle philosophie de la connaissance (Paris, 1934). Metz, A., ‘La physique des quanta et I’tpistemologie meyersonienne’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 54 (1949), 139- 162. Actes du x’ Congres des SociCtCs de Philosophie de Langue Metz, A., ‘Bergson et Meyerson’, Francaise, “Bergson et Nous”, Bulletin de la Societe Francaise de Philosophic, No. special, 53 (1959). 235 -237.

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Metzger, H., ‘La philosophie d’Emile Meyerson et I’histoire des sciences’, Archeion 11 (1929), xxxii-xliii. Metzger, H., ‘Emile Meyerson: Zdentite et real&!‘, Isis 9 (1927), 470 - 472. Metzger, H., ‘Emile Meyerson: De L’explication duns les sciences ‘, Isis, 4 (1922), 382 - 385. Metzger, H., ‘Emile Meyerson. La deduction relutiviste, Isis 7 (1925), 517 - 520. Metzger, H., ‘Emile Meyerson: Reel et determinisrne dans la physique quantique’, Archeion 15 (1933), 483 -484. Milhaud, G., ‘Sur une theorie recente de la causalite’, Revue du mois November 1912. Mochi, A., ‘Notes en marge a De l’explication dans les sciences’, Revuephilosophique de France et de I’etrunger 108 (1929), 105 - 138. Mourelos, G., L’epistemologie positive et la critique meyersonienne (Paris, 1962). Muller, A., ‘Meyerson, Emile. Zdentite’et realitt?, Zeitschrtft fir Philosophic undphilosophische Kritik 142 (191 l), 75 - 80. Paci, E., ‘11 paradosso epistemologico di Emilio Meyerson e l’antinomia dell’uno e de1 molteplice nella scienza’, Rivista di filosofia 1937. Palante, G., ‘Zdentite’et realite’, Mercure de France 99 (1912), 612. Parodi, D., “De I’explication duns les sciences par Emile Meyerson”, Revue de metaphysique et

de morale, 31 (1924), 585 - 597. D., ‘Le cheminement de la pensee selon M. Emile Meyerson’, Revue de metaphysique et de morale 39 (1932), 387 - 415. Parodi, D., ‘Meyerson, Milhaud et le probleme de l’epistemologie’, Bulletin de la Societe’ Francaise de Philosophie 55 (1960), 65 - 94. Pastore, A., ‘Critica dell’irrazionalismo del Meyerson’, Rivista difilosofia 17 (1926), 207 - 220. Pelloux, L., ‘1 fondamenti de1 pensiero filosofico di Emilio Meyerson’, Rivista di filosofiu neoscolastica 26 (1934), 166- 173. Penjon, A., ‘Zdentite et realite’: Revue philosophique de France et de I’e’tranger 66 (1908), 410-417. Pillon, F., ‘Zdentite et realite’, L’anneephilosophique 23 (1912), 211-212. Potonie, R., ‘Emile Meyerson. Zdentite’et realit Scientia 39 (1926), 370- 371. Reiser, O., ‘Du cheminement de lapense’e, par Emile Meyerson’, Philosophical Review 43 (1934), 75-77. Rey, A., ‘A propos De I’explication duns les sciences de M. Meyerson’, Revue de synthese historique 32 (1921), 132- 140. Reymond, A., ‘Emile Meyerson (1859- 1933)‘, Archeion 16 (1934), 107- 108. Rousen, H., ‘A Philosophy of Science, Identity and Reality by Emile Meyerson’, New Republic65 (1931) 278 - 279. Roustan, D., ‘L’evolution du rationalisme’, Revue politique et literuire 61 (1923), 853 - 855; 62 (1924) 23-25, 62-67. Russell, L. J., ‘Du cheminement de la pensee par Emile Meyerson’, Mind 41 (1932), 380- 384. Sageret, J., ‘La philosophie d’Emile Meyerson’, Opinion 2 January 1932, 17-20, 16 January Parodi,

1932, 18-21. Sageret, J., ‘Philosophie

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all’universo della