Physics is Pythagorean: A Case For Ontic Structural Realism

One Pythagorean position on physics is summed up by the ontic structural realists James Ladyman and Don Ross: “Mathematical entities such as sets and other structures are part of the physical world and not therefore mysterious abstract objects.”

This essay is primarily a commentary on the ‘Ontic Structural Realism and the Philosophy of Physics’ chapter of James Ladyman and Don Ross’s book Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.

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The ontic structural realist philosophers James Ladyman and Don Ross have been classed — variously — as “neo-Pythagoreans” and “Platonists”.

If a philosopher were a neo-Pythagorean (i.e., rather than a Platonist), then such a philosopher may think that (to use Ladyman and Ross’s words)

“mathematical entities such as sets and other structures are part of the physical world and not therefore mysterious abstract objects”.

At least this position “suggest[s] a kind of Pythagoreanism” to Ladyman and Ross.

It must be said here that — on my reading at least — the fusing of mathematical entities with the physical world isn’t really Platonist. It’s not Platonist because Plato’s prime concern was the abstract and atemporal realm of numbers and other abstract objects (such as Forms, Ideas or universals); not abstract objects as they’re instantiated in the physical world.

What does sound very much like Ladyman and Ross’s position (as well as being partially Pythagorean) is the suggestion of

“abandoning the distinction between the abstract structures employed in models and the concrete structures that are the objects of physics”.

Ladyman and Ross go on to say that such “abstract structures employed in models” actually are the “objects of physics” (i.e., if such a distinction is indeed abandoned). In Ladyman and Ross’s case, we can say that abstract structures are the things of physics. In other words, the argument is that if we erase abstract structures from the picture of physics, then we have nothing left…

However, does it follow that abstract structures are literally everything in physics?

Ladyman and Ross quote the Dutch philosopher Bas van Fraassen who stated that

“it is often not at all obvious whether a theoretical term refers to a concrete entity or a mathematical entity”.

Bas van Fraassen’s position would be agreed upon by many actual physicists — or at least by many quantum physicists. (One can read many physicists stating more or less the same thing as Bas van Fraassen.)

Ladyman and Ross then express a position which one would imagine critics have aimed at their own position. They argue that

“the fact that we only know the entities of physics in mathematical terms need not mean that they are actually mathematical entities”.

Now are Ladyman and Ross endorsing that position or simply stating that, as a matter of logic, the following argument is invalid? -

i) If we only know the entities of physics in mathematical terms,

ii) then the entities of physics must themselves be mathematical entities.

Ladyman and Ross go on to explain their position in terms of rejecting what they call the “abstract/concrete distinction”. They argue that

“the dependence of physics on ideal entities (such as point masses and frictionless planes) and models also offers another argument against attaching any significance to the abstract/concrete distinction”.

We still need an answer to whether or not (in Ladyman and Ross’s words) “the fact that we only know the entities of physics in mathematical terms” leads to the conclusion that such entities “actually [are] mathematical entities”. Yes, it needn’t lead to that conclusion. However, to Ladyman and Ross, it does lead to that conclusion.

Isn’t it the case that if there were only mathematical models or mathematical structures, then we couldn’t call them “mathematical models” or “mathematical structures” in the first place? Surely such words exist precisely because of the abstract/concrete distinction. This isn’t necessarily to say that we should attach too much significance to that distinction; or even that we can know the entities of physics without abstract mathematical structures and models. Nonetheless, none of this (in itself) is a reason to reject the abstract/concrete distinction or even to refuse to (in Ladyman and Ross’s words) “attach any significance to” it.

Take the case of a very-explicit Pythagorean: Max Tegmark.

Max Tegmark

To sum up Max Tegmark's position:

i) Because the models of causal processes are identical to those processes,

ii) then they must be one and the same thing.

More precisely, Tegmark’s argument is as follows:

i) If a mathematical structure is identical (or “equivalent”) to the physical structure it “models”,

ii) then the mathematical structure and the physical structure must be one and the same thing.

So, if that’s the case (i.e., that structure x and structure y are identical), then it makes little sense to say that x “models” (or is “isomorphic with”) y. That is, x can’t model y if x and y are one and the same thing in the first place.

Tegmark also applies what he deems to be true about the identity of two mathematical structures to the identity of a mathematical structure and a physical structure. He offers us an explicit example of this:

electric-field strength = a mathematical structure

In Tegmark’s own words:

“‘ [If] [t]his electricity-field strength here in physical space corresponds to this number in the mathematical structure for example, then our external physical reality meets the definition of being a mathematical structure — indeed, that same mathematical structure.”

But here’s an argument and a question:

i) If x (a mathematical structure) and y (a physical structure) are one and the same thing,

ii) then one needs to know how they can have any kind of relation at all to one another. [Gottlob Frege’s “Evening Star” and “Morning Star” story may work here.]

In terms of Leibniz’s law, everything true of x must also be true of y.

But can we observe, taste, kick, etc. mathematical structures?…

Yes we can! But only if we deem physical things to be identical to mathematical structures!

In addition, can’t two structures be identical and yet somehow separate (i.e., not numerically identical)? Well, not according to Leibniz.

All this is perhaps easier to accept when it comes to mathematical structures being compared to other mathematical structures (rather than to something physical): not when it comes to mathematical structures being compared to things. Yet if things are mathematical structures, then even that qualification won’t be accepted by either Pythagoreans or by ontic structural realists.

All this is also expressed (at least as it is applicable at the quantum scale) in the following passage written by the science writer John Horgan (1953-):

“[M]athematics helps physicists define what is otherwise undefinable. A quark is a purely mathematical construct. It has no meaning apart from its mathematical definition. The properties of quarks — charm, colour, strangeness — are mathematical properties that have no analogue in the macroscopic world we inhabit.”

This means that if mathematics is all we’ve got, then it’s not really a surprise that many physicists (i.e., the more philosophical ones) argue that everything important — or even relevant — that’s said about the quantum world is said by the maths.

Structures: Relations and Relata

A realist about things can happily accept that mathematical structures are

“used for the representation of physical structure and relations, and this kind of representation is ineliminable and irreducible in science”

and still be a realist about things (or events/conditions/states/etc.). However, it’s precisely because of the ineliminable nature of mathematical structures in physics that has led ontic structural realists to become eliminativists about things (i.e., they see things as structures too — see here); just as it led Plato and Pythagoras to similar conclusions.

Indeed we can even accept that it’s an important fact that the (as mathematical structuralists put it) “world instantiat[es] mathematical structure” and still believe that the abstract/concrete distinction is important.

For example, the coffee cup and carrot in front of me instantiate mathematical structure. However, they also exist qua coffee cup and qua carrot. There’s also the fact that all objects, events — all things! — exhibit (or instantiate) mathematical structure. That, however, is (in a strong sense) a banal fact because all it amounts to is the fact that every thing can be given a mathematical description and also be mathematically — or otherwise — modelled (i.e., even a coffee cup or a carrot).

Ladyman and Ross also provide a useful set of four positions which focuses on the nature of relations and relata (or things). Thus:

(1) There are only relations and no relata.

(2) There are structures in which things are primary, and relations are secondary.

(3) There are structures in which relations are primary, while things are secondary.

(4) There are things such that any relations between them are only apparent.

At first glance one would take ontic structural realism to endorse (1) or (3). However, since things are themselves structures (according to Ladyman and Ross), then we must settle for (1) above (i.e., “There are only relations and no relata”).

Looking at (1) to (4) again, can’t it be said that (2) and (3) amount to the same thing? In other words, can we distinguish

(2) There are structures in which the things are primary, and relations are secondary.

from

(3) There are structures in which relations are primary, while things are secondary.

at all? Isn’t that a difference which doesn’t make a difference?

So one can still ask — in the metaphysical pictures of (2) and (3) — the following question:

Can things exist without relations and can relations exist without things?

That’s a question of existence.

Now what about natures?

One can now ask:

Can things have their natures without their relations and can relations have their natures without things?

As already stated, Ladyman and Ross adopt option (1) above: There are only relations and no relata.

Universals

Ladyman and Ross give a very interesting Platonist reason as to why they adopt (1) above. They cite as an example this assertion:

“The Earth is bigger than the moon.”

In terms of relata, it’s certainly true that the Earth and the moon exist. It’s also true that the Earth is bigger than the moon.

So what about the relation bigger than?

Here (just as in Bertrand Russell’s ‘The World of Universals’) the metaphysical (well) things called universals come to the rescue. Ladyman and Ross state that the

“best sense that can be made of the idea of a relation without relata is the idea of a universal”.

Thus the relation BIGGER THAN is a universal. (Ladyman and Ross also see it as being “formal”.) That is,

“when we refer to the relation referred to by ‘larger than’, it is because we have an interest in its formal properties that are independent of the contingencies of their instantiation”.

In other words, the universal BIGGER THAN doesn’t need the moon, Earth or anything else concrete to have being. Indeed the universal BIGGER THAN need never be instantiated between any two concrete objects.

This is the classic position of Plato.

Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that universals must be instantiated.

Ladyman and Ross round this off by making their Platonist position (at least in this specific respect) explicit. They write:

“To say that all that there is are relations and no relata, is therefore to follow Plato and say that the world of appearances is illusory.”

Let’s be explicit here.

The “world of appearances” includes carrots, cups and other human persons. (It certainly doesn’t include subatomic particles.) Yet in order to get to the Platonic truth, we must cut through such appearances (which are “illusory”) and discover the mathematical structures of what it is we’re examining. Alternatively, we must discover the universals and mathematical structures which underpin appearances.

Scientific Theories Don’t Need To Be True

The philosopher Ernan McMullin didn’t believe that the “acceptance of a scientific theory [also] involves the belief that it is true”. Moreover, “to suppose that a theory is literally true would imply that no further anomaly could arise”. And surely such a stance on truth is counterproductive in science.

The Irish philosopher Ernan McMullin (1924 — 2011) was the O’Hara Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. He was a philosopher of science who wrote on theology, cosmology, values in science, Darwinism, etc. McMullin was also a Catholic priest and an expert on Galileo.

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Karl Popper (1902–1994) once argued that the notion of truth is counter-productive in science because the attainment of complete truth (even if possible in principle) would bring the (or a) scientific story to an end. Instead, Popper argued for what he called verisimilitude.

[As one source defines verisimilitude: “In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions.”)

The main problem here is that it can be argued that the notion of complete truth is actually contained (or embedded) within the notion of verisimilitude. Ernan McMullin (in his ‘A Case for Scientific Realism’) made this point when he wrote that the

“term ‘approximate truth’ [] is risky because it immediately invites questions such as: how approximate, and how is the degree of approximation to be measured?”.

In order to know that a theory is approximately true, wouldn’t we also need to know what would make it completely true and/or what makes it partly false? And in order to know both those things, wouldn’t we also need to know what the complete truth of that theory is? Moreover, what is a theory’s approximate truth measured against?

On this critical reading, then, there is no approximate truth or verisimilitude at all.

The Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking (in his book The Social Construction of What?) hints at a similar point when he mentions the positions of Thomas Kuhn and the physicist Steven Weinberg. He writes:

“In Structure Kuhn rejected the idea of scientific progress towards some one final vision of the world. What we see in the history of science is progress away from previous beliefs. Weinberg (1996b, 56) quotes some of Kuhn’s later writing, where Kuhn had said ‘it’s hard to imagine… what the phrase ‘closer to the truth’ can mean.’ [].”

One doesn’t need to be be a Kuhnian to agree that the phrase “closer to the truth” is both problematic and odd. So perhaps it should never be taken literally (i.e., it should be taken poetically or even rhetorically). But, of course, in the cases mentioned in this essay at least, the phrase is taken literally.

Ernan McMullin added to all this when he wrote the following:

“I do not think that acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. Science aims at fruitful metaphor and at ever more detailed structure. To suppose that a theory is literally true would imply, among other things, that no further anomaly could, in principle, arise from any quarter in regard to it.”

It can be doubted that McMullin actually knew that no scientist believes that his own and other scientific scientific theories are true. That’s because there are many scientists who have used the word “truth” — if perhaps sometimes loosely — about their own and other scientists’ theories.

So perhaps McMullin’s position was both philosophical and normative. Indeed the normative and logical elements of his position are encapsulated in his final words:

“To suppose that a theory is literally true would imply, among other things, that no further anomaly could, in principle, arise from any quarter in regard to it.”

On another tact. Strictly speaking, only statements can be true or false. Nonetheless, if a theory is simply seen as a collection of true statements, then its entirety can also be seen as being true due to the fact that all the statements it contains are also true…

Yet scientific theories don’t really work like that.

Even though theories do contain statements, not all its statements are either true or false. (Strictly speaking, then, perhaps they aren’t statements at all.) Some statements involve predictions, probabilities, conjectures (or speculations), reference to “unobservables” and whatnot. Only few of the statements (or expressions) which make up most theories will have a purely (as analytic philosophers put it) truth-conditional content.

In addition, it’s also clear that what McMullin referred to as “fruitful metaphor[s]” can’t be true or false either.

What McMullin also seems to have argued is that a “worldly structure” shows itself only slowly — over time. Each successive theory about the (same?) structure comes… well, closer to the truth. (This is the position of scientific structuralism.) However, since this is ongoing process concerning theories about structure x, then no single theory of x can ever be said to be conclusively true.

McMullin then gave an example of a worldly structure.

He stated that “[s]cientists in general accept the quantum theory of radiation”. He then asked: “Do they believe it to be true?” McMullin concludes:

“Scientists are very uncomfortable at this use of the word ‘true’ because it suggests that the theory is definitive in its formulation.”

In other words, scientists don’t need to classify (or even see) their theories as being true. Indeed it can even be said — and it has been said — that scientists don’t need truth at all. Instead, a scientist can “accept an explanation as the best available”. Moreover, “one accepts a theory as a good basis for further research”.

All that said, some readers may detect truth — even complete truth — lurking underneath all these words, arguments and positions.

Why Richard Feynman (the Superstar Physicist) Hated Philosophy and Philosophers

Richard Feynman called philosophy “low-level baloney” and philosophers “pompous fools” who make “stupid remarks”. He also said that “cocktail-party philosophers never really understand the subtleties and depths” of the problems they tackle.

The well-known American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (1918–1988) didn’t like philosophy. He particularly didn’t like philosophers. Indeed Feynman is so renowned for his dislike of philosophy and philosophers that the UK’s very own physicist and media personality Brian Cox couldn’t stop himself from mentioning Feynman’s very-often-quoted remark that

“the philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”.

Ironically enough, Brian Cox also once tweeted a comment (see here) about a Feynman quote which had previously been taken to mean (at least on Twitter) that scientists should “stick to science” — i.e., rather than discuss ethics, Donald Trump/Joe Biden, Brexit, the Ukraine, Jeremy Corbyn, films, fate, peace, social justice, the Internet, people’s sex lives, “the future of humanity” (or “the world in 2030”), UFOs, déjà vu… and also, perhaps, philosophy itself. (See my ‘Michio Kaku and Other Superstar Physicists on the Price of Bread’.) Clearly Feynman didn’t follow his own rule because he often ventured outside of science with his (published and broadcast ) opinions… not least when commenting on philosophy and philosophers. (Hence the many social-media memes of Feynman’s words.)

Of course, as a loyal member of the Tribe of Physicists, Brian Cox claims that “[t]his Feynman quote is regularly taken out of context”. In other words, Cox believes that scientists should comment on politics and on (all?) other subjects too.

[I’m assuming — because it’s unclear from the Twitter thread — that the words “stick to science” had been aimed at Brian Cox because he often comments on issues which have nothing at all to do with science… Unless, that is, literally everything has something to do with science.]

To return to Feynman on philosophy and philosophers.

Feynman called philosophy “low-level baloney”. (What, exactly, is high-level baloney?) What’s more, he claimed that philosophers make “stupid remarks”.

Like many other physicists, Feynman’s big problem was that philosophy isn’t physics. His other big problem was that philosophers aren’t physicists. Those two statements together may seem like a crude and simplistic account of Feynman’s actual position. However, if you read his words, you’ll quickly note the lack of names of actual philosophers or any details about what they actually wrote or said.

[This state of affairs was replicated by the German theoretical physicist and YouTube presenter Sabine Hossenfelder. For example, she wrote an article (called ‘Electrons Don’t Think’) on the philosophical position of panpsychism. In that article she doesn’t quote a single panpsychist, tackle a single argument in support of panpsychism or even paraphrase a single panpsychist’s words. See my ‘Sabine Hossenfelder Doesn’t Think… About Panpsychism’.]

So now take Feynman’s claim that philosophers “never really understand the subtleties and depths of the problem”. Ironically, it’s worth noting here that Feynman himself once uttered the following (also) often-quoted soundbite:

“I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics.”

To be honest, I find Feynman’s remark purely rhetorical. After all, it’s fairly clear that Feynman didn’t have too much time for the interpretations of quantum mechanics — let alone for the philosophy of quantum mechanics. (Perhaps more accurately, Feynman didn’t publish anything on the interpretations of quantum mechanics. There are, however, papers such as ‘Feynman’s interpretation of quantum theory’.) In other words, Feynman knew all of the relevant mathematics. “The trouble was”, as science writer Philip Ball (1962-) puts it (in his book Beyond Weird), “that’s all he could do”. What’s more, to Feynman, “[quantum] theory works”; though “without our knowing what it’s about”.

One can guess (i.e., from the overall context) that Feynman’s claims basically mean that (most? all?) philosophers don’t understand the mathematics and all the technical details involved in physics. Or to put it more simply: Feynman was basically saying that philosophers don’t know as much about physics as… physicists (or at least not as much as physicists like him).

In that sense, then, theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking (some 40 or more years later) replicated Feynman’s views when he stated that “philosophers haven’t kept up with physics”. Indeed (in his book The Grand Design) Hawking went into more detail as to what he thought about philosophy in the following passage:

“Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”

Yet, of course, if philosophers knew as much about physics as physicists, then they’d probably actually be physicists.

Did Feynman Only Dislike the Philosophy of Science?

Some commentators and readers may say that it was only the philosophy of science (as in “The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”) that Feynman had a problem with. Indeed Feynman did once say that “what science is, is not what the philosophers have said it is”. (Feynman also went on to say that science is “certainly not what the teacher editions say it is”.)

In that sense, then, Feynman’s position was later replicated by the American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss (1954-) when, in an interview with Ross Anderson, he said:

“[T]he worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science.”

Despite that, Marcus Munafo (a professor of biological psychology) and George Davey Smith (the director of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol) have written the following words:

“Richard Feynman once claimed that the ‘philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.’ We disagree.”

Who knows, perhaps Feynman would have picked up on the fact that these two scientists aren’t physicists. That is, biological psychology isn’t physics and epidemiology isn’t physics either. So was Feynman a Sheldon Cooper-type character in that he too had very little respect for any discipline — other than mathematics — that wasn’t theoretical physics? (Shelden Cooper is — or was — a young and “eccentric” theoretical physicist in the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.)

In any case and as the philosopher-with-a-doctorate-in-physics David Z. Albert (1954-) put it (in a videoed debate):

“What the hell have physicists done for music lately?”

To repeat: when you read Feynman’s words, it’s clear that he had a problem with just about all philosophy.

Various reasons have been cited for Feynman’s antipathy toward philosophy… That is, other than the reason that he couldn’t stomach the fact that philosophy isn’t physics.

For example, according to Stephen Doty, Feynman (as a young student) had a bad experience with none other than René Descartes:

“Descartes basically infers that his idea of a perfect God could only have been caused by a perfect God, who therefore must exist. Descartes overlooked that he could have just as well acquired an idea of God from being taught the word as a child from his religious instruction. He might as well have argued that his idea of a Ideal Woman must have an equal cause, so she must exist too.”

According to the same commentator:

“Second, while in graduate school at Princeton, Feynman sat in on a philosophy lecture. The professor, knowing Feynman was a physics student, asked him if an electron was an ‘essential object’. Feynman asked back whether a brick is an essential object. Some students said yes, but others said that only the concept of a brick or its ‘brickiness’ was. They could not agree, so Feynman never answered the question and left saying philosophers used words in a ‘funny way’.”

And finally:

“Feynman’s most annoying brush with philosophy occurred at an ethics conference. His group was asked to discuss ‘The ethics of inequality in the fragmentation of knowledge.’ Feynman wanted to frame a clear question first, but the others saw no need. They wrote their report in a pretentious academic style which frustrated Feynman, so he decided to translate it into plain English. The first opaque sentence reduced to ‘People read.’ … ‘pompous fools’ in the humanities, as he called them, were intolerable.”

Feynman’s Apt Criticisms of (Some) Philosophy

Not to be entirely one-sided and biased, it’s worth stating that some of Feynman’s criticisms of philosophy are both worthwhile, apt and indeed… philosophical. That said, Feynman’s criticisms of philosophy aren’t original. That is, some of his criticisms of philosophy had already been stated by… philosophers.

Take Feynman’s references to what seems to have been ordinary language philosophy (or, more broadly, linguistic philosophy), which he called “dopey”. In his Lectures on Physics Vol.1 (1963), Feynman wrote:

“We can’t define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers [] one saying to the other: you don’t know what you are talking about! The second one says: what do you mean by ‘talking’? What do you mean by ‘you’? What do you mean by ‘know’?”

One philosopher who’d made these points before Feynman was Karl Popper. (He partly did so in his paper ‘The Nature of Philosophical Problems and Their Roots in Science’, which was published in 1952 — some 11 years before Feynman’s words.) Indeed the reign of linguistic philosophy (if that was Feynman’s true target at all) only lasted around 25 years (roughly, from the 1940s to when Feynman wrote these words in the mid-1960s).

What’s more, it was other philosophers who destroyed this “school” or movement! (Incidentally, other philosophers - such as W.V.O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn — destroyed logical positivism too. See here.)

One notable critique of ordinary language philosophy can be found in Ernest Gellner’s book Words and Things, which was published in 1959. (Who knows, perhaps this last fact would have proved Feynman’s point too.)

Let’s now go into some detail and tackle the ‘Relativity and the Philosophers’ section of the chapter ‘Relativistic Energy and Momentum’ (which is from The Feynman Lectures on Physics).

Feynman’s ‘Relativity and the Philosophers’

Perhaps it may seem a little unfair to focus on what Feynman said about philosophers. However, in the section ‘Relativity and the Philosophers’ (of a larger chapter) at least, the exclusive theme here is what philosophers believed about Albert Einstein’s Relativity (specifically when it came to motion). In that section Feynman never once mentions the views of laypersons, artists, other scientists, or political activists on this subject. Feynman’s focus was entirely on what philosophers thought about the issue he tackles — namely, what he called “physical relativity”.

As a taster, Dennis Richard Danielson classes this section (of a larger chapter) from Feynman as a “satire” which is

“aimed at those who would reduce physics to either woolly, trivializing ‘philosophy’ or lazy paradox’”.

Cocktail-Party Philosophers

Feynman uses the term “cocktail-party philosophers” throughout the section ‘Relativity and the Philosophers’. I have absolutely no idea who he’s referring to. That’s primarily because Feynman doesn’t mention a single philosopher’s name or actually quote anyone.

In any case, Feynman then stated that he would henceforth call all philosophers who believed “all is relative” (i.e., the ones he didn’t want to “embarrass” in writing) “cocktail-party philosophers”.

Personally, I’ve never come across the phrase “cocktail-party philosophers” and Feynman doesn’t go into much detail about it. (Of course one can easily guess what he meant!) So I Googled the phrase. That didn’t help. All I found were references to Feynman’s own use of these words. So it can only be assumed that the phrase “cocktail-party philosophers” was flying around the place in the early 1960s. Alternatively, perhaps Feynman actually invented the phrase. (That said, he does put the words in scare quotes.)

At first, the way Feynman puts the positions of these cocktail-party philosophers — and what he says about them as people — makes them seem like pretentious (as well as pretty dumb) postmodernists or poststructuralists… The problem with that possibility is that Feynman wrote these words in 1963.

Alternatively, perhaps Feynman didn’t mean real philosophers (whatever they are) — just those people at (cocktail) parties who think they’re philosophers. The problem here, however, is that Feynman did repeatedly attack philosophers and philosophers without ever mentioning cocktail parties. That is, Feynman attacked professional philosophers. Indeed, when you read all this section, it can be seen that Feynman couldn’t possibly have had in mind laypersons philosophising their arses off at parties.

For example, Feynman wrote:

“These philosophers are always with us, struggling in the periphery to try and tell us something, but they never really understand the subtleties and depths of the problem.”

This can’t be a reference to philosophical loudmouths at parties. For a start, have cocktail-party philosophers — specifically — “always [been] with us”?

To be fair to Feynman, he did at times reign in his generalisations about philosophy and philosophers.

For example, Feynman wrote that “there is even a philosophy that one cannot detect any motion except by looking outside”. So at least Feynman writes “there is even a [my italic] philosophy”, rather than, say, “[all] philosophers believe that…”. This implied that there may be a philosophy — lo and behold — that didn’t have this position on motion.

So Feynman, at least here, appears to have accepted the possibility that there was more than one “school” of philosophers.

What’s more, after generalising about philosophers believing that “all is relative”, Feynman does mention what he called “another school of philosophers”. The philosophers in that school (whichever school Feynman actually had in mind) “felt very uncomfortable about he theory of relativity”.

All this means that one school of philosophy (i.e., the Cocktail Party School) embraced the idea that “all is relative” and another school of philosophers… didn’t. This also means that Feynman had a go at one group of philosophers for “feel[ing] very uncomfortable about the theory of relativity”; and then went straight ahead and had a go at another group of philosophers for embracing it.

All is Relative?

Feynman claimed that “a surprisingly large number of philosophers, not only those found at cocktail parties” believed that “Einstein’s theory says all is relative!”.

Had Feynman access to the views of a “large number of philosophers”? He might well have done so. However, he didn’t mention a single one of them. That said, Feynman did also claim that he didn’t want to “embarrass” the philosophers who held this view. In that case, then, why didn’t he simply mention some philosophical movements (or schools), positions, arguments, or philosophical isms instead?

It’s certainly true that at least some philosophers — and more people outside philosophy — did once argue that “all is relative”. The problem for Feynman’s position is that not all philosophers did so. Indeed, if a vote had ever been taken on this subject in 1963 (roughly when Feynman wrote these words), then my bet is that only an extreme minority of philosophers would have argued that all is relative. (This universal claim is vague anyway.)

So perhaps Feynman had such an extreme minority in mind. That said, why didn’t he make that clear and name some names?

Interestingly, the American journalist and author Walter Isaacson (1952-) makes various points which might well have undergirded Feynman’s own position on philosophy and philosophers. Isaacson wrote:

“In both his science and his moral philosophy, Einstein was driven by a quest for certainty and deterministic laws. If his theory of relativity produced ripples that unsettled the realms of morality and culture, this was not caused by what Einstein believed but by how he was popularly interpreted.”

More relevantly, the British historian Paul Johnson (1928-) stresses that it wasn’t (just?) philosophers who’d overstretched Einsteinian Relativity. Johnson wrote:

“At the beginning of the 1920s the belief began to circulate, for the first time at a popular level, that there were no longer any absolutes: of time and space, of good and evil, of knowledge, above all of value. Mistakenly but perhaps inevitably, relativity became confused with relativism.”

Feynman’s own overall position was (of course) that “it is not true that ‘all is relative’”. So if Feynman believed that philosophers held the position that all is relative, then, sure, he’d have had a very good reason to be against philosophers… Except we still have the inconvenient fact that not all philosophers did believe that all is relative.

One other problem Feynman had with the All is Relative School of Philosophers (or Cocktail Party Philosophers) was that they suffered from the malady of stating the bleeding obvious. In one particular example, Feynman basically states that such all-is-relative philosophers needn’t have stolen Einstein’s ideas in order to make their (rather obvious) point. Feynman himself wrote:

“That what one sees depends on his frame of reference is certainly known to anybody who walks around, because he sees an approaching pedestrian first from the front and then from the back; there is nothing deeper in most of the philosophy which is said to have come from the theory of relativity [].”

And many people would agree with all that.

What’s more, agreement will also have come from many of the philosophers who were around when Feynman wrote those words; just as it will come from many — or even most — philosophers who’re around today.