epistemological basis of the 'new' model of nature

8/3/2019 Epistemological Basis of the 'New' Model of Nature

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Islamic Research Institute for Culture and Thought

International Conference

Quran and Epistemology Conference

Tehran, 2012

The Epistemological Basis of the New Model of Nature

From an Arab/Islamic Perspective

Samir Abuzaid


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Samir Abuzaid

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From an Arab/Islamic Perspective

Samir Abuzaid

Abstract

The problem of the disagreement between the mechanistic model and

the current advancement of science and philosophy of science is

addressed. The author argues that the three basic presuppositions of

the mechanistic model (the indivisible atoms, determinism and

reduction) are scientifically refuted and hence, there is a need for a

new model of nature that restores consistency between our view tonature represented by such a model and our contemporary scientific

and philosophical knowledge. The author analyses the concept of the

model of nature and deduces its basic principles, and reviews the

possible basic principles of such an alternative model. On the basis of

his analysis of the epistemological presuppositions of the

Arab/Islamic Worldview, as a sociological and not as a religious

concept, he introduces his view of the basic principles of the new

model that are consistent with such a Worldview and with the

scientific proven facts as well as with the contemporary

advancements of the field of philosophy of science.

1. Introduction

Today we live in the modern world. The modern world is usually

contrasted to the pre-modern periods by its scientific Worldview as opposed to

the Religious Worldview. One of the basic marks of such a contrast is that the

modern scientific Worldview is based on the 'mechanistic' causal view whereas

the Religious one is based on the 'teleological' view. The exemplar of the first one

is the Newtonian mechanistic picture of the world, whereas the exemplar of the

second is the Aristotelian teleological picture of the world, especially when

associated with the Christian religion.


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The function of each picture of the world is to present successful

explanations to phenomena we experience in our human life; from those related

to our earthly objects, such as plants, animals and humans to the phenomena

related to the macrocosm with its celestial objects and events. In comparison to

the teleological view, the mechanistic view has proved much more successful in

explaining such phenomena, to the extent that we gave up completely the

teleological view in favor to the mechanistic one.

However, the mechanistic view has encountered, since the first third of

the twentieth century on, great difficulties that forced scientists and philosophers

to defend it in several ways. Such a defense has turned such a picture, as will be

explained clearly, from a realistic picture that describes reality in strait forward

terms to some form of a metaphysical or theoretical formulation. In addition,

such a defense is now bearing heavily on the future. So instead of getting more

scientific and practical support, defenders of such view reckon on the

metaphysical assumption that future advancement of science will bring with it

scientific justification of such a view.

The main problems that confronted the mechanistic view, due to the

advancement of contemporary science, are on the subatomic, biological and

mental levels. This leaves true and complete success of such a view confined to

only one level, namely the natural normal level, with the exception of chaoticsystems. Till today there is no agreed upon or complete mechanistic explanation

of the Quantum phenomena at the subatomic level, the organic and cellular vital

phenomena, and the human intentional and consciousness phenomena, in

addition to chaotic and self organization systems.

Despite contemporary prevalence of the mechanistic view as well as its

theoretical metaphysical defending forceful arguments, nevertheless, a wide

variety of philosophical views that are either partially or totally in contradiction

with such a view has appeared in the recent decades. This has produced a

situation of fragmentation or a basic schism in contemporary scientific and

philosophical community. Today we have a full range of spectrum of views with

respect to explanation of phenomena of the world, all of which are part of

contemporary academic scientific and philosophy of science domains. Such a

spectrum starts at one extreme by defending what can be termed the orthodox


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mechanistic view, through views that present new concepts that aim at saving

such a view on behalf of some of its presuppositions, and ends at the other

extreme by views that contradict directly such view and present alternative

scattered non organized non-mechanistic views.

Three Possible Positions

Within this fragmented picture it is evident that advancement of science,

natural and human, is based essentially on the degree of success of the view

embraced about the real world. Hence, coming to consensus amongst the

scientific and philosophical community is especially important for the future of

contemporary science. More important is to achieve consensus about the more

fruitful and productive view, whether mechanistic or not.

In this respect, we have three possible positions: First, coming to

consensus about a new or improved form of the mechanistic view in order to

overcome its current problems; Second, rejecting the notion of the World view

or World picture altogether, whether mechanistic or not; The third, is to place

effort toward constructing a new non -or partially- mechanistic view.

In this work, we reject the second option; for we start from the contention

that science cannot advance with the absence of an overall consistent view to the

world. From another side, much work is currently underway to support both

metaphysically and practically the mechanistic view to the world. The only

position left is that in which a new scientific view to the world is to be admitted.

Such a position is that which we purport to discuss in this study from the point of

view of the contemporary Arab/Islamic worldview.

The Arab/Islamic Scientific View

A Worldview is that of a specific person, society or a complex of societies

(i.e., a Civilization). In addition, a Worldview can be based either on natural

human presuppositions, or on a specific religion. In the later case, such a person,

society or a civilization deduces such a Worldview from the strictures, rituals or

the central text of such a religion.

Within this understanding of the term, the Islamic world, as a group of

societies (Arabs, Iranians, Turks, etc), belongs to one civilization that possesses a


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specific Worldview, namely the Arab/Islamic civilization. The Worldview of such

a Civilization is based essentially on the principles and values of 'Al-Quran',

which is the central text of the Islamic religion. Consequently, such a Civilization

bears its name from the language that preserves such a text, which is Arabic, and

from the religion through which its Worldview is deduced, which is Islam.

Here we make essential differentiation between two basic concepts:

Religion and Civilization. If we don't make such a differentiation by using one

and the same term "the Islamic Worldview" then we will conflate the two

meanings of the term: the 'Islamic Worldview' as a religious idealistic concept,

and the 'Islamic Worldview', as a sociological-epistemological concept. The first

can't be used in the sociological analysis of the society with its cognitive and

epistemological principles because of its idealistic nature in which there is no a

sociological actor. In the second, the sociological actor is the societies that

comprise together the collective civilizational complex.

Establishing the essential difference between the two concepts of Religion

and Worldview is important in this work. For the scientific view of the

Arab/Islamic civilization is nota religious view to the world, rather, it is a

civilizational view that is developed and continuously evolves according to the

advancement of the local societies of such a civilizational complex as well as in

response to the advancement of human thought at large1

.

With such a general understanding in mind, every Worldview constitutes

a specific view to the world in general, and to the basic principles upon which

scientific and epistemological knowledge of the world can be constructed, in

particular. Here, it should be noted that such principles don't produce an a

priori fixed picture of the world. Rather, such a picture, as a scientific one,

changes with the change of our human knowledge as well as with the different

views introduced in the different societies within the same general civilizational

Arab/Islamic complex.

1For a recent work that establishes clearly, on the basis of civilizational analysis research

program, the basic differentiation between the two concepts see,

Salvatore, Armando. 2010, "Repositioning Islamdom The CulturePower Syndrome within a

Transcivilizational Ecumene", European Journal of Social Theory V. 13(1), Pp. 99115.


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The general beliefs and presuppositions of the Worldview deduced from

the Islamic religious view only posit the general limits of our scientific beliefs of

the world. Hence, the eliminative materialist view, for example, falls outside the

limits of the Arab/Islamic Worldview, whereas the dualist as well as neutral

monism can be taken to be within such limits. Therefore, the scientific picture of

such a Worldview is not a religious or Islamic scientific view; rather, it

represents the scientific view of the contemporary Arab/Islamic societies. As a

consequence, such presuppositions will allow us, as will be seen, to participate

positively in contemporary endeavors to formulate the contemporary scientific

view to the world.

On the basis of such understanding of the concept of the Arab/Islamic

scientific view to the world we will deal in this work with the problem of the

possible or anticipated new model of nature. It should be noted here that, for

reasons that will be clear in the following pages, we will use the term 'model of

nature' instead of other terms such as World view, World picture, World

presuppositions, etc.

2. The Concept of the 'Model of Nature'

Nature is all what we experience as humans: non-living material, living

animals as well as other humans. With advancement of science such a concept

has included newly discovered entities such as atomic and subatomic elementary

particles, on the micro level, as well as planets, stars and galaxies, on the macro

level. Human endeavors to explain phenomena related to such entities

necessitated two basic moves: classification of such entities into categories, and

reducing some categories of such classification to some other more basic

category. In this way such a vast and enormous number of different entities are

reduced to a small number of basic categories. In addition, the process of

explanation necessitated establishing specific form for the relations between such

categories. The result is a simplified picture or view to nature.

However, we prefer to use the term 'model' to describe such a process for

two reasons. First, the term 'view' or 'Worldview' is too wide for the problem we

deal with here, whereas the term 'picture' gives an impression of a subjective


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position from nature. Second, the term 'model' gives as we shall see an

impression of a scientific stance from nature.

However, the term 'model' points out to some kind of 'replication' or

'representation' of an original entity or object with some basic difference

between the two. Since any object is composed of elements and relations between

these elements, the model should reflect the elements of that object and the

relations between them. Hence a replica of a specific material object, for example

a statue, with difference in size is a 'model', of such a statue; a theoretical

description of the elements and relations of a specific system, the solar system for

example, is a 'model' of such system, and so on.

However, when we speak about a model of nature as a whole, in

accordance to this general understanding, human experience along the historyhas shown that such a model would be extracted through identifying two basic

concepts. The first is the concept of reduction in which we reduce all that exists

in nature to the elementary entities that comprise together all existence. The

second is that the relations between such constituents of reality are mathematical

in principle. These elementary entities and the mathematical relations between

them 'represent' the real world, and hence, comprise a model of nature. Through

such basic constituents and the mathematical relations between them we should

be able to explain all the natural phenomena around us.

Due to these two basic features of the 'model of nature', any such model is

basically linked to the scientific theories about nature, or more precisely to 'laws

of nature'. Hence, Stathis Psillos defines the concept of the model in

contemporary philosophy of science as follows:

Term of art used in understanding how theories represent the world.

Though according to a popular view, the semantic view of theories,

theories are families of models, there is little agreement as to what models

are, how they are related to theories and how they represent whatever they

are supposed to represent... According to Cartwright, models are devices

employed whenever a mathematical theory is applied to reality. This view

has recently been developed into the models-as-mediators programme,


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according to which models are autonomous agents that mediate between

theory and world.2

Roman Frigg and Stephan Hartmann introduce the relation between

models as theories about the world and the concept of 'Laws of Nature' as

follows:

What role do general laws play in science if models are what represent

what is happening in the world? One possible response is to argue that

laws of nature govern entities and processes in a model rather than in the

world. Fundamental laws, in this approach, do not state facts about the

world but hold true of entities and processes in the model.3

However, in this paper we will take any model of nature as composed of

three basic concepts or presuppositions: the final constituents of reality, the

'vertical' relations between the successive levels of nature, and the 'horizontal'

relations that realize motion and change within the same level.

Keeping in mind such a general view of the concept of 'model of nature',

there are several types of 'scientific' models of nature that are introduced along

the history of human thought. In general, these views can be classified into:

mechanical, teleological, process, organic, and Complex, in addition to the

multiple levels view of nature (material/live/mind levels).4

However, two major

models have dominated human thought, namely, the Aristotelian teleological

model and the mechanistic atomistic model.

The Aristotelian Model

The Aristotelian model of nature is well known in history of philosophy as

the exemplar of a teleological model. The basic elements are four, fire, earth,

water and air, whereas the basic relation is the final cause. Such a model has

dominated humanity since the Greek age till modernity. According to Jonathan

2Psillos, Stathis. 2007, "Philosophy of Science AZ", Edinburgh University Press, P. 153-154

3Frigg, Roman and Hartmann, Stephan. 2006, "Scientific Models", in Sahotra Sarkar and

Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), the Philosophy of Science An Encychlopedia, Routledge, p. 748.

4Stephen C. Pepper mentions six 'metaphors': animism, mysticism, formism, mechanism,

organicism, and contextualism that produce different Worldviews or 'World hypothesis',

.Koltko-Rivera, Mark E. 2004, "The Psychology of Worldviews",Review of General Psychology,

Vol. 8, No. 1, Pp. 9.


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Barnes5, Aristotle offers a clear view of the nature of reality. The elements or

fundamental stuffs of the sublunary world are four: earth, air, fire, and water.

Each element is defined by way of four primary powers or qualities wetness,

dryness, coldness, and hotness. The elements have each a natural movement and

a natural place. Fire, if left to itself, will move upwards and will find its place at

the outermost edges of the universe; earth naturally moves downwards, to the

centre of the universe; air and water find their places in between. The elements

can act upon and change into one another. Beyond the earth and its atmosphere

come the moon, the sun, the planets, and the fixed stars. (Barnes: 98)

However, Aristotles main contention is that the physical universe is

spatially finite but temporally infinite: it is a vast but bounded sphere which has

existed without beginning and will exist without end (Barnes: 100). In such a

model, there is a basic difference between the earthly sub-lunar realm and the

heaven that is composed of planets and stars.

The heavenly bodies, which Aristotle often refers to as the divine bodies,

according to Barnes, are made of a special stuff, a fifth element or

quintessence; Now it is the function of what is most divine to think and to use

its intellect, so that the heavenly bodies, being divine, must therefore be alive

and intelligent. Aristotle, according to Barnes, argues for the existence of a

changeless source of change an unmoved mover as it is normally called. Ifthere is to be any change in the universe, there must, Aristotle holds, be some

original source which imparts change to other things without changing itself.

The unmoved mover is outside the universe (Barnes: 102)

The core of Aristotles account of explanation is his concept of 'change'

and his doctrine of the four causes, a concept that encounters a considerable

degree of vagueness. For it is usually presented as four types, 'the material

cause', 'the formal cause', 'the efficient cause' and the 'final cause'. However,

according to David Cooper, Aristotle's original writing in Greek didn't point out

to the term cause as understood in English, rather, for him a 'cause' is what is

cited in answer to questions beginning 'On account of what?'. On such a basis,

5Barnes, Jonathan. 2000, "Aristotle -A Very Short Introduction", Oxford University Press.


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cooper asserts, he is clearly right in that people offer answers of all four kinds6.

However, the central concept that explains change in the Aristotelian model, as

well known, is the last kind of the four causes, which is the final cause.

For the great majority of thinkers and philosophers such a model

constituted a huge obstacle to scientific advancement of humanity. The basic

reason for such a position is that it adopts teleology in scientific explanation.

With the advent of the mechanical 'causal' explanation, a new era for

advancement of science has commenced7.

The Classical Mechanistic Model

Modernity is marked by the appearance of the mechanistic view to

nature. Nature, in such an account, is composed of tiny microscopic indivisible

atoms that interact continuously according to laws of motion generating

everything we experience in nature. It is usually referred to the Newtonian

Mechanics as the most complete theoretical form of such a view.

Stathis Psillos defines the concept of mechanism as "any arrangement of

matter in motion, subject to the laws of mechanics". More specifically, he adds, it

was thought that all macroscopic phenomena were the product of the

interactions (ultimately, pushings and pullings) of microscopic corpuscles. The

latter were fully characterised by their primary qualities".8

However, the mechanistic model of nature has never been introduced in a

complete formulation, even in the Newtonian version where the force of gravity

violates the principle of direct interaction. Instead, such a model has appeared

gradually with different versions. It was first introduced by figures such as

Descartes, Gassendi and Boyle in the seventeenth century as opposed to the

Aristotelian model in general, and to the teleological explanations, in particular.

In this period, the mechanistic view was a part of what is termed the corpuscular

theory of matter.

6Cooper, David. 1996, "World Philosophies An Historical Introduction", Blackwell, Pp. 117.

7Major critics of Aristotle are Descartes in his 'The World ' (1633) and Francis Bacon in his 'the

new Organon' (1620), and Bertrand Russell in his 'A History of Western Philosophy' (1946),

among many others.

8Psillos, Stathis. 2007, "Philosophy of Science AZ", Edinburgh University Press, P. 149


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During the period of its early formulation, according to Stephen

Gaukroger, Gassendi set out the programme of the mechanistic view in broad

terms as follows: There is no effect without a cause; no cause acts without

motion; nothing acts on distant things except through itself or an organ or

connection or transmission; nothing moves unless it is touched, whether directly

or through an organ or through another body.9

Stephen Gaukroger points out that the classical notion of 'Mechanism'

existed in many varieties, and that it is difficult to characterize in the abstract.

However, he construes in some detail, the ideal-type mechanism as which has the

distinctive feature that it reduces all physical processes to the activity of inert

corpuscles making up macroscopic objects, where the behaviour of these

corpuscles can be described exhaustively in terms of mechanics and geometry,

and where they act exclusively by means of efficient causes, which require spatial

and temporal contact between the cause and the effect. We can assume, he

continues, that the corpuscles contain no empty spaces, that they are spherical,

and that they are all of the same order of magnitude. The space in which they

move is a continuous, complete, isotropic, three-dimensional container which

acts as a reference frame for the location of bodies (Gaukroger: 260).

Carl Craver and William Bechtel state that the notion of mechanism has

four aspects: (i) a phenomenal aspect, (ii) a componential aspect, (iii) a causalaspect, and (iv) an organizational aspect.

10The phenomenal aspect is related to

the appearances of the mechanism. The componential aspect is related to the

final constituents of the mechanism. The causal aspect is related to the cause and

effect relations between the components of the mechanism. Finally, the

organizational aspect is related to the structure of the mechanism.

In the case of the mechanistic view to nature as a whole, the phenomenal

aspect is the different levels of nature (the micro subatomic level, the normal

macro level, the vital and the mental). The componential aspect is the final

constituents of matter which was seen in the classical mechanistic view as the

9Gaukroger, Stephen. 2006, "The Emergence of a Scientific Culture - Science and the Shaping of

Modernity, 12101685", Clarendon Press, Oxford, P. 253.

10Craver, Carl and Bechtel, William. 2006, "Mechanism", in Sahotra Sarkar and Jessica

Pfeifer (eds.), the Philosophy of Science An Encychlopedia, Routledge, p. 469.


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indivisible atoms. The causal aspect is that based on direct contact between the

final constituents. And the organizational aspect is represented by the concepts

of reduction (the vertical relations) and determinism (horizontal relations).

Of special importance in the mechanistic view the two essential relations,

determinism and reduction. According to John T. Roberts, the most famous

exposition of the doctrine of determinism in the context of modern science is due

to Pierre Laplace:

We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its

antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence

knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the

momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to

comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well

as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently

powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the

future as well as the past would be present to its eyes.11

However, such a concept has become more complex, especially when

related to laws of nature. According to Roberts, it is taken to be of a

deterministic theory, where the property of determinism is defined by

quantifying over all the physically possible worlds allowed by the theory.

Alternatively, he adds, one can define determinism as a property of a set of laws,

proceeding as above, but quantifying over all the possible worlds allowed by that

set of laws. (Roberts: 200)

Similarly, the concept of reduction is no less complicated. Reductionism is

the thesis that the results of inquiry in one domain -be they concepts, heuristics,

laws, or theories- can be understood or are explained by the conceptual

resources of another, more fundamental domain12

. According to Michael

Silberstein, historically, there are two main construals of the problem of

reduction and emergence, ontological and epistemological:

11Roberts ,John T. 2006, "Determinism", in Sahotra Sarkar and Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), the

Philosophy of Science An Encychlopedia, Routledge, p. 198.

12Wimsatt, William C. and Sarkar, Sahotra. 2006, "Reductionism", in Sahotra Sarkar and

Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), the Philosophy of Science An Encychlopedia, Routledge, p. 696.


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1. The ontological construal: is there some robust sense in which

everything in the world can be said to be nothing butthe fundamental

constituents of reality (such as super-strings) or at the very least,

determined by those constituents?

2. The epistemological construal: is there some robust sense in which our

scientific theories/schemas about the macroscopic features of the

world can be reduced to or identified with our scientific theories about

the most fundamental features of the world.13

Yet, according to Silberstein, these two construals are inextricably

related. Reductionism is the view that the best understanding of a complex

system should be sought at the level of the structure, behavior and laws of its

component parts plus their relations. The ontological assumption implicit is that

the most fundamental physical level, whatever that turns out to be, is ultimately

the real ontology of the world, and anything else that is to keep the status of

real must somehow be able to be mapped onto or built out of those elements

of the fundamental ontology (Silberstein: 81).

Thus, the three basic presuppositions of the classical mechanistic model of

nature, namely, the indivisible corpuscular final constituents, determinism, and

reduction, by advancement of science turned out to be mere philosophical or

theoretical constructs, instead of being true in the real world. As we will see inthe next section, this leads to the conclusion that the mechanistic model in its

classical or realistic sense has in effect failed.

3. Failure of the Mechanistic Model

Today, in the mainstream scientific community, nobody defends the

existence of final indivisible constituents of mater. For, effectively, advancement

of science in the twentieth century, especially, the standard model of the

subatomic realm, has proved that the atom is composed of an extremely

complicated system of elementary particles (Quarks and Gluons). Moreover,

nobody can define realistically the nature of such particles, for the standard

model itself is not complete yet due to our inability to unify the gravitational

13Silberstein, Michael. 2002, "Reduction, Emergence and Explanation", in Peter Machamer and

Michael Silberstein (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell, P. 80.


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force with the other three basic forces of nature. Michael Silberstein describes

the current situation as follows:

The world is not just a set of separately existing localized objects,

externally related only by space and time. Something deeper, and more

mysterious, knits together the fabric of the world. We have only just come

to the moment in the development of physics that we can begin to

contemplate what that might be (Silberstein: 97).

As a consequence, the mechanical postulate of the interaction between the

final corpuscular constituents of matter is rendered to the status of a

philosophical speculation instead of being a realistic representation of nature.

Similarly, nobody, in the main stream science, defends today determinism

as a concept that mirrors reality. For Quantum Mechanics has shown that

subatomic particles interact probabilistically. For example John Roberts states

clearly that the probabilistic nature of state reduction entails that the standard

formulation of quantum mechanics is indeterministic in all of the senses of the

term. (Roberts: 204)

As a consequence, we can't ascribe determinism to individual particles or

systems, but we can define the overall probabilistic outcome of one particle over

a sufficient period of time or of sufficiently great number of particles in a specific

time. This led to the appearance of the concept of 'probabilistic determinism', an

obvious endeavor to save 'philosophically' the concept of determinism.

Moreover, the appearance of chaotic and self-organized systems, in which

we can't follow the deterministic interactions between the particles, and hence

can't predict its outcome in advance, have led to giving up the classical notion of

determinism in such systems. To the extent that John Roberts states,

[I]t is now known that classical physics is not deterministic, in either the

predictability sense or the ontic senseMore generally, many classical

systems exhibit the feature known as chaos, which rules out the

possibility of predictability (Roberts: 200) .

Besides the physical systems, determinism has proved to be not applicable

to other non-physical systems, such as organic chemical combinations, living

cells, animals, and human beings. This leads to the conclusion that the classical


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notion of determinism is applicable only to extremely limited special cases, which

is the idealized mechanical system in the normal scale, such as an idealized group

of billiard balls on an idealized flat table.

In addition to the above, the concept of reduction, whether in its

ontological or epistemological senses, couldn't be Justified in reality. Efforts to

reduce the mental level to the biological, as well as the biological to the chemical

have not been successful along the course of the last few decades despite the great

advancement of scientific technology.

On the theoretical side, efforts to reduce human action to laws of physics,

have failed due to our inability to explain the phenomena of human intentional

states as well as human consciousness. Similarly, biology could not be reduced to

the laws of physics. The end result was the appearance of the concept of specialsciences, in which there is no privilege to physics as the base of all science

14.

This becomes clear in recent works about the problem of reduction.

Sahotra Sarkar states that a very common belief among philosophers is that

reduction leads to the unity of science.15

However, William Seager, states clearly,

It has become clear in the later stages of the century that despite the rich

and complex interrelationships that prevail among scientific theories,

there is little or no prospect of even roughly fulfilling the dream of the

grand unification of all theories into a complete hierarchy of reduction.16

With the failure of realizing the three pillars of the mechanistic model of

nature it becomes clear that such a model, at least in its classical realistic sense,

has failed. However, such a view is still prevailing not in a realistic sense but in

philosophical sense, even though without a complete formulation as a means of

inquiry. This situation is clear in the following statement of Mark B. Couch in a

very recent paper,

14See the famous article by Jerry Fodor,

Fodor, Jerry. 1974, "Special Sciences (or: the Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis)",

Synthese, V. 28 Pp. 97-115.

15Sarkar, Sahotra. 2008, "Reduction", in Psillos Stathis and Curd Martin (eds.) The Routledg

Companion to Philosophy of Science, Pp. 430.

16Seager, William. 2001, "Supervenience and Determination", in W. H. Newton-Smith (ed.)A

Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell, P. 480.


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The notion of a mechanism has become increasingly important in

philosophical analyses of the sciences. Many philosophers now accept

that explanations that appeal to mechanisms have a fundamental role to

play in scientific practice. The notion of a mechanism, however, still

remains inadequately understood. There is unclarity about what precisely

makes something count as the mechanism for a capacity, and no

agreement about the criteria we should use in making this determination.17

The failure of the mechanistic explanation as a realistic model of nature

has, among other reasons, led to the appearance of new concepts that contradict

directly the presuppositions of such a model.

The New anti-Mechanical Philosophical Concepts

New concepts in direct contradiction with the basic presuppositions of theclassical realistic mechanistic model of nature have appeared gradually during

the last decades of the twentieth century.

The corpuscular postulate of the final constituents of mater has been

contradicted by the appearance of the theory of Quantum mechanics and our

inability to define the nature of the subatomic elementary particles, as mentioned

above. In addition, the postulate that such corpuscular particles are passive in

nature is contradicted by the appearance of the concepts of disposition and

powers. For, according to Rom Harr, to attribute a disposition (or power) to a

thing or substance is to say that if certain conditions obtain, then that thing or

substance will behave in a certain way, or bring about a certain effect that is,

that a certain outcome will occur18

.

The concept of reduction is contradicted by the concepts of emergence

and holism. According to Michael Silberstein, Claims involving emergence are

now rife in discussions of philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics, various

branches of physics itself including quantum mechanics, condensed matter

theory, nonlinear dynamical systems theory (especially so-called chaos theory),

cognitive neuroscience (including connectionist/neural network modeling and

consciousness studies) and so-called complexity studies (Silberstein: 93).

17Couch, Mark B. 2011, "Mechanisms and constitutive relevance",Synthese, V. 183, Pp. 375.

18Harr, Rom. 2001 , "Dispositions and Powers", in W. H. Newton-Smith (ed.)A Companion to

the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell, Pp. 97 .


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Emergentists, following Justin Garson, generally hold an ontological

premise and an epistemological one. The ontological premise is that (i) there are

properties (or laws) that obtain of certain complex physical entities that do not

obtain of any of the individual parts or lower level constituents of those entities.

The epistemological premise is that (ii) the instantiation of those properties

cannot be derived from an exhaustive knowledge of the nonrelational properties

of the parts, in addition to any laws of composition that obtain among lower-level

entities (e.g., additivity, fundamental forces) and statements of definition. Hence

emergentism takes its place in contemporary philosophical parlance as a variety

of nonreductionist physicalism.19

From another side, the concept of holism, which is in direct contradiction

with reductionism, has appeared in the last decades. The term "holism" refers to

a variety of positions which have in common a resistance to understanding larger

unities as merely the sum of their parts, and an insistence that we cannot explain

or understand the parts without treating them as belonging to such larger

wholes.20

Therefore, instead of reducing the 'larger unities', such as the mind, the

living cell, etc, to the physical level, without a remainder, such unities are

understood as wholes that lose its significance if reduced to its constituent parts.

Such a situation in which the mechanistic explanation survives alongside

other numerous concepts that are in contradiction with it points out to thecurrent fragmented situation of the philosophical community.

4. The Possible New Model of Nature

By now, it should have become evident that the model of nature employed

is crucial in advancement of science. We have already seen that for many

scholars, the Aristotelian model represented an obstacle for advancement of

science. And with the increasing gap between this model and scientific facts it

was inevitable to abandon it in favor to the newly admitted mechanistic model.

Similarly, today we experience a gap between the mechanistic model of

nature and scientific facts as well as new trends in philosophy of science. Such a

19Garson, Justin. 2006, "Emergence", in Sahotra Sarkar and Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), the

Philosophy of Science An Encychlopedia, Routledge, p. 230

20Hookway, Christopher. 2001, "Holism", ", in W. H. Newton-Smith (ed.)A Companion to the

Philosophy of Science, Blackwell, P. 162 164.


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gap is represented by our inability to explain phenomena related to Quantum

Mechanics, our inability to unify the natural and human realms, and by giving

up the presuppositions of the mechanistic model, as shown above.

Scholars from different orientations, both scientists and philosophers of

science, within the mainstream science pointed out clearly to such a situation. In

order to show that the question we raise in this paper about the need for a new

model of nature is already addressed strongly in literature, we will review recent

opinions of three philosophers who belong to the mainstream academic

community of science and philosophy of science. The common theme that is

shared between such three opinions is that 'modern science' might be wrong

headed and that the presuppositions of such a science are in need of radical

renovation or even total substitution.

Three Recent Different Views

1- Craig Dilworth and the Metaphysics of Science.

Craig Dilworth21

in his 'Metaphysics of Science' tries to avoid the

problematic associated with the classical mechanistic model. He makes clear that

science is not totally objective, rather, it is based on transcendental beliefs that

consist of the most fundamental presuppositions of science. In being

transcendental, he asserts, they cannot have been arrived at through the pursuit

of science, but must be, in a definite sense, pre-scientific, or metascientific. And

they can be revised or abandoned in favour of alternatives (Dilworth: 1-2).

On such a basis, he criticizes most of other contributions to the

philosophy of science. For, in them, "there is an implicit faith that humankind

has been constantly moving forward along the one road to Truth, that road

being Science, without consideration being given to the thought that modern

science might appear just as wrongheaded in the future as alternative forms of

science do now" (Dilworth: 7-8).

Dilworth introduces three basic presuppositions or principles of modern

science that are taken to be ontological in nature, thus they are to be conceived as

21Dilworth, Craig. 2006, "the Metaphysics of Science - An Account of Modern Science in terms

of Principles, Laws and Theories", 2nd ed., Springer. Dilworth is a professor of philosophy at

Uppsala University.


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together delineating an ontological paradigm or ideal (Dilworth: 51). These three

principles are: the principle of uniformity of nature, the principle of substance

and the principle of causation.

A. The Principle of the Uniformity of Nature

According to Dilworth, the principle of the uniformity of nature concerns

change, and is usually understood to mean that natural change is lawful, or takes

place according to rules. It thus implies a deterministic conception of change,

though this determinism need not be strict. For example, adds Dilworth, the

rules according to which change takes place might on occasion be broken, while

the principle still retain its basic validity such a breaking of the rules perhapsconstituting a miracle; or it may be that the principle apply only to broad

categories of change, setting deterministic limits within which relatively

undetermined change can take place as we assume when we grant ourselvesand fellow humansfree will; or with regard toprobabilistic laws. (Dilworth: 53).

Here, it is clear that Dilworth relegates the principle of determinism to the status

of a more general metaphysical one, to the extent that it accepts probabilistic

laws, free will, or even breaking the rules (which means miracle).

B. The Principle of Substance

In this second principle, Dilworth avoids definition of the final

constituents of matter (be it atoms, quarks or otherwise). Moreover, he accepts

anti reduction with respect to levels of nature. He implements instead the view

that each level 'presupposes' its previous one in the hierarchy. In addition, he

admits that the substance can be relativised to a discipline in the sense that the

substance of a discipline need only exist perpetually from the point of view of the

discipline itself (Dilworth: 56-57). Hence, in this principle there is no a definite

final substance, in addition there can be no 'ontological' reduction of the upper

level to the lower level.

C. The Principle of Causality

The principle of causality, according to Dilworth, states that change is

caused. For him, the idea of supernatural causes has no place in modern science.

But all natural causes need not be conceived of as being physical, and there are

important alternatives to be considered, the foremost of which is the idea of a


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formal cause (Dilworth: 57). This means that Dilworth allows for mental as well

as non-natural causation (in order to allow for free will), which represents an

apparent depart from the classical understanding of causation. He justifies such

a position by stating that "in neither the natural nor the social sciences do we at

present have alternatives of equal simplicity, coherence and generality to take

their place, and that if we did, we might then ask whether we still had to do with

what we today call modern science'". (Dilworth: 61).

However, these three presuppositions or principles are presented by

Dilworth in order to save the mechanistic model of modern science. The end

result is giving up the final constituents postulate, the determinism postulate, and

the reduction postulate. Moreover, such a characterization of reality is too

general to present an alternative.

2- Henry Stapp and the Mindful Universe.

On the basis of the new discoveries of the Quantum World, Henry Stapp,

a well known physicist, in his 'Mindful Universe'22

, stresses on the failure of the

mechanistic model to incorporate the mental phenomena. In his view, the

conflating of Nature herself with the impoverished mechanical conception of it

invented by scientists during the seventeenth century has derailed the

philosophies of science and of mind for more than three centuries, by effectively

eliminating the causal link between the psychological and physical aspects of

nature that contemporary physics restores. But the now-falsified classical

conception of the world still exerts a blinding effect (Stapp: 2).

The problem, according to Stapp, is, rather, a conceptual one: the

concepts of classical physics that many neurobiologists are committed to using

are logically inadequate because, unlike the concepts of quantum physics, they

effectively exclude our conscious thoughts (Stapp: 3). In his view, all nature were

believed to be completely determined by the physically described properties and

laws that acted wholly mechanically at the microscopic scale. But the baffling

features of new kinds of data of the Quantum world acquired during the

twentieth century caused the physicists who were studying these phenomena, and

22Stapp, Henry P. 2007, " Mindful Universe - Quantum Mechanics and the Participating

Observer", Springer.


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trying to ascertain the laws that governed them, to turn the whole scientific

enterprise upside down (Stapp: 6).

The founders of quantum mechanics, according to Stapp, made the

revolutionary move of bringing conscious human experiences into basic physical

theory in a fundamental way. After two hundred years of neglect, he adds, our

thoughts were suddenly thrust into the limelight. This was an astonishing

reversal of precedent because the enormous successes of the prior physics were

due in large measure to the policy of excluding all mention of idea-like qualities

from the formulation of the physical laws (Stapp: 17).

The solution in Stapp's view is to embrace a specific interpretation of

Quantum mechanics in which human consciousness plays essential role.

Therefore, in Stapp's view, the final constituents of matter are continuouslyengaged with human consciousness as well as its free will, generating what is

called the Psychophysical Building Blocks of Reality (Stapp: 96). A situation that

produces closing up the gap between the material and the mental.

3- David Peat in From Certainty to Uncertainty

David Peat in his "From Certainty to Uncertainty"23

cites the inherent

uncertainty that is discovered in the different domains of scientific inquiry. From

quantum theory, chaos theory, mathematics, representation, computer science,

language, to science of the environment, he discusses in details how our view to

the world has been radically changed from a world in which certainty is secured

to another in which uncertainty about the world dominates.

Quantum Mechanics, again, is the basic source of uncertainty. For,

according to Peat, in the quantum world, Quantum chance is not a measure of

ignorance but an inherent property. No amount of additional knowledge will

ever allow science to predict the instant a particular atom decays because

nothing is causing this decay, at least in the familiar sense of something being

pushed, pulled, attracted, or repelled. Chance in quantum theory is absolute and

irreducible. (Peat: 9). Such a fact has, according to Peat, deep consequences, to

the extent that Pauli (one of the founders of QM) spoke of the need for physics to

23Peat, David F. 2002, "From Certainty to Uncertainty the Story of Science and Ideas in the

Twentieth Century", Joseph Henry Press.


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21

confront the subjective levels of matter and come to terms with irrationality in

nature. (Peat: 16)

Moreover, according to Peat, uncertainty also exists in another and even

more disturbing way, about the very goal of science and philosophy. From the

time of the Greeks, he continues, human beings have asked what the world is

made of. But then Niles Bohr challenged the ability of science and the human

mind to proceed further. He, according to Peat, almost seemed to be suggesting

that science as we knew it had finally reached a limit and could go no further as

a means of enquiry into the nature of reality. Maybe quantum reality exists only

as a concept in our own minds. And thus we are left with a mystery. Maybe there

are no foundations to our world. (Peat: 24 - 25)

This leads Peat to conclude that, we have to acknowledge that our worldis more complex than we ever imagined. And to point out that science has begun

to set aside the blinders it has been wearing for the past 200 years to view the

world in terms of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. If the material world

appeared simpler in the past, he states, it was because we were looking at it

through the perspective of classical physics. (Peat: 199-200).

In this perspective, what will be the future of science, how can we deal

with such a situation? The answer is through diversity of scientific views. Peat

countenances the way for diversity in scientific practice as follows: Science

begins with our relationship to nature. The facts it discovers about the universe

are answers to human questions and involve human-designed experiments. The

Western scientific approach, for example, places nature in a series of highly

artificial situations and demands that answers are given quantitatively in terms

of number.

As a consequence, Peat concludes, other societies, had they developed a

strong science of matter and an associated technology, may have had quite a

different relationship to the natural world. In turn, they would have asked other

sorts of questions. They may have been more concerned with relationship,

wholeness, the position of the human observer, and the role of consciousness in

the world. They may have abstracted quantities or qualities different from those

of, say, mass and velocity. This is not to say, he comments, that a science created


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by Non Western societies would in some way contradict or deny Western science.

Rather it would provide a different framework for knowing the world, through

which alternative theories and explanations would be offered (Peat: 208-209).

Here, it is clear that Peat, as much as the other two views, is talking about

the need for a new view to science that is to replace the oversimplifying

mechanistic view to nature. The answer is naturally a new model of nature that

can deal with the new world which is characterized by inherent uncertainty,

complexity and the positive role of human subjectivity.

Possible Candidates for a New Model

The picture in reality is much more complicated. The aforementioned

views are no more than examples of the different views that are introduced in the

last few decades in order to overcome the difficulties that confront contemporary

modern science with its already failed mechanistic model of nature24

. This means

that we are in the middle of a period similar to that between the middle ages and

the modern era (between the 14th

and the 17th

centuries). In such a period

dissatisfaction with the Aristotelian model was growing along with the continued

endeavors to formulate an alternative model. These efforts have culminated in

constructing the mechanistic model which has been successful until the

appearance of QM around the first third of the twentieth century.

With such a characterization of the current period in mind, the question

of the possible alternative model of nature arises strongly. What would the

formulation of such an alternative model look like; what are its basic

presuppositions that prove consistent with the contemporary proven scientific

facts; what would be its vertical relations between levels of nature as well as its

horizontal causal relations between its composing elements.

There are many proposals that lurk around in contemporary literature,

in which different formulations of the presuppositions of a new view to nature

are introduced. However, the prospective model of nature that we expect to be a

24The new views of science cover a wide range of proposals both within mainstream science as

well as outside orthodox academic circles. For detailed exposition of such proposals see our,

Abuzaid, Samir. 2008, "Science and Conditions of Renaissance the New scientific Conceptions

and the Scientific Grounding of the Arabic Renaissance", Madbouli Bookstore, Cairo, Pp. 84

127. (in Arabic)


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real alternative should be: 1) consistent with proven scientific facts; 2) internally

consistent. Therefore, the question is not in proposing different views or

presuppositions, but it is in the details of the proposed formulation which is

supposed to fulfill the above mentioned conditions. It should be noted here that

fulfilling the condition of consistency with contemporary proven scientific facts

would lead to some sort of continuity with the previous mechanistic model.

Hence, our aim should not be to over through the current 'modern mechanistic

science', but to perform a sort of upgrade of contemporary science to another

phase of advancement toward uncovering mysteries of nature.

In the following we will present the possible positions that are introduced

in contemporary literature in each of the basic components of the structure of

the anticipated new model. The first represents the basic constituents of nature

which is supposed to be an alternative to the postulate of the final indivisible

'atoms'. The second represents the vertical inter-levels relations that are

supposed to be in place of the postulate of reduction. Finally, the third is the

horizontal relation which is supposed to be in place of the concept of the direct

contact mechanical causal relations.

By reviewing the different positions proposed in literature we can

introduce the following brief picture of the possible presuppositions that have the

opportunity to fulfill the above mentioned conditions.

1- Postulates of the final constituents of nature.

Eliminating the postulate of the solid indivisible entities, as proven to be

in contradiction with proven facts of science25

, we have the following:

- The final substance is energy that is not corpuscular, but in some way

composes passive matter at the lowest level of the hierarchy of nature.

- The final substance is energy that composes a double sided or dipole

'matter-mind', (the psychophysical constituents).

- Different forms of matter at different levels of reality with unknown

relation between them (due to the emergent properties).

2- Postulates of the vertical inter-levels relations

25The concept of nature excludes by definition the existence of the supernatural entities; hence it

is not part of our discussion of the elements of the model of 'nature'.


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Eliminating the postulate of reduction as proven to be inconsistent with

contemporary scientific facts (the failure of the grand unifying theory), then we

have the following:

- Completely separate levels of nature (radical emergentism).

- Partial reduction between only two successive levels (supervenience).

- Holism, in which the upper level affects lower levels (downward

causation).

3- Postulates of the horizontal causal relations

Eliminating the postulate of determinism as well as non scientific

teleology (i.e., that which is not linked to functionalism or human intentionality)

as in contradiction with contemporary scientific facts, we have the following:

- Probabilistic indeterminism

- Functionalism (for organisms)

- Dispositions and Powers.

- Intentionality (which includes teleology for human beings)

- Chaos, self-organizing systems and fractals indeterministic relations.

The challenge that confronts contemporary scientific community, then, is

to construct out of such possible postulates a self consistent model of nature that

sheds new light on our scientific inquiry and helps to advance new solutions to

current unsolved problems, such as interpretation of QM, the phenomenon of

consciousness, and above all construction of a non-reductionist formal system of

laws of nature.

5. Epistemological Basis of the Arab/Islamic Worldview

It should be emphasized again, as pointed out above, that the concept of

the 'Arab/Islamic Worldview' is a sociological concept that ascribes a specific

Worldview to a specific group of societies that belong to one civilizational

complex. Such a worldview can develop and evolve with the continual unfold of

our understanding of nature as well as with the continual development of such

societies. In addition, such a group of societies can have minor differences, within

the general framework of such a Worldview, which reflects the particularity and

course of intellectual evolution of each of them.


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This should be contrasted to and differentiated from the concept of the

'Islamic Worldview', as noted above. For, the later is a religious concept that

does not change with the evolution of the society. And in very general terms, it

includes the final and unchanging religious beliefs about the world. Therefore,

basic beliefs of the sociological concept (the Arab/Islamic Worldview) are

formulated on the basis of those of the Islamic Worldview, such as the existence

of God, the hereafter, the reality of God's messengers, the possibility of God's

miracles. Whereas, the rest of the beliefs that compose it are based on human

experience.

Therefore, with respect to the issue of the model of nature, the relation

between the social form of such a view and the religious Worldview is twofold.

The first is that the religious Worldview imposes basic restriction on the

Arab/Islamic (social) view, which is that it can't be a materialistic one, in the

sense of the strict determinism discussed above. However, other forms of

naturalism that remain silent with respect to the supernatural will be consistent

with it. Such condition allows for the naturalistic treatment of the topic without

being in contradiction with the religious Worldview, in accordance to our

separation/connection methodology discussed elsewhere26

.

The second is that the social Arab/Islamic view to nature draws from the

religious Worldview as well as its founding text (Al-Quran Al-Kareem) its basicpresuppositions through interpretations of the text. Due to the fact that the

process of interpretation includes inevitably differences in views of the result of

such a process, there would be inevitably differences in the basic presuppositions

of such a view form a society to another. However, such differences will be

limited and bounded by the more general basic beliefs agreed upon above.

Hence, in practice there will be a diversity of views within the general framework

of the 'Arab/Islamic Worldview'.

26The separation/connection method is developed specifically to resolve the problems that arise

when we confront the problem of the relation between science and religious issues. But at the

same time it has a general form that applies to every problem that encounters a subjective and an

objective element. See details of deduction and formulation of such a method in our,

Abuzaid, Samir. 2005, "The method of religious renewal in the thought of shaikh Abdoulquaher

Aljurjani", in the magazine of the Faculty of Dar el'Oloum, issue no. 36, Pp. 161-212. (in Arabic)


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Epistemological Presuppositions of the Arab/Islamic View

Within such a general perspective of the relation between the 'Islamic

Worldview', 'the Arab/Islamic Worldview' and the problem of the model of

nature, we express our own view of the 'scientific' or 'epistemological'

presuppositions of such a view. It should be noted that what we present here is

no more than a contribution from a specific writer who belongs to the Arabic

societies which is part of the collective Arab/Islamic civilizational complex.

Consequently, such a view is but a specific view that can be criticized by other

non-Arabic views. However, at the same time such a view can be legitimately

considered as fully consistent with the final or basic beliefs of the religious

'Islamic Worldview'. Consistency, here, means only that it doesn't contradict in

any way such basic beliefs.

Keeping in mind such a note, the epistemological presuppositions of the

Arabic Worldview are composed of the following principles:

1- Reason is the basic tool of knowledge, and knowledge is in principle

possible.

2- Reason is supposed to reply to the question of knowledge, how

creation has started, how existence is composed, and of what, and the

starting point is observing nature.

3- Scientific knowledge is an ethical and religious act because it leads to

knowing God.

4- Scientific knowledge is a religious duty because it makes possible for

man to construct ethical communities.

5- There are limits to human knowledge; complete knowledge is for God

alone.

6- Science is not completely free, but it is committed to abide to the

ethical principles.

7- Humans possess freedom of choice, and are subject to laws of nature.

8- There are universal eternal laws that govern change; those laws

represent exposition of God's will.

9- The principle of evolution; evolution is for all existence, evolution here

is much wider than, and different from, Darwin's theory.

10- The principle of quantity; knowledge is quantitative.


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Samir Abuzaid

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11- The principle of scientific advancement, where such advancement is

essentially ethical.27

Such basic epistemological principles can be grouped into three general

presuppositions, namely, limits of knowledge, indeterminism in causal relations

and the ethical function of scientific knowledge (Abuzaid, 2009: P. 124).

From such basic principles of the Arabic scientific view (which can be

easily generalized to the general Arab/Islamic Worldview), it becomes possible to

define the basic elements of any possible model of nature that is consistent with,

or introduced through, such a view.

Consistent Principles of the Possible Model of Nature

As we have previously mentioned throughout this paper, there are three

basic components of any model of nature, namely, the final constituents, the

vertical inter-level relations, and the horizontal casual relations between them.

Following are our view of such components that could be consistent with the

Arab/Islamic view, introduced without detailed analysis.

1- Multiple levels, with different forms of the constituents of reality.

Reality is composed of material/energy particulars that can be broken

into further parts indefinitely; the only limits for such constituents are those of

human knowledge. In addition, material of the different levels has different

emergent properties.

2- Symmetric vertical relations between the successive levels of reality.

The relation between the different levels of reality is not reductionist;

rather there is symmetric as well as formal resemblance between them.

3- Indeterminist as well as teleological forms of horizontal relations

The horizontal 'casual' relations within each level are based generally on

both the 'mechanical/indeterminist causal' as well as the 'teleological' human

relations. However, the form of such relations differs in the different levels. The

human level is more teleological (due to intentionality and free will), whereas the

27Justification and Details of such a view are introduced in our,

Abuzaid, Samir. 2009, "Science and the Arabic Worldview, the Arabic Experience and the

Scientific Grounding of Renaissance", Center for Arabic Unity, Beirut, Pp. 107-130. (in Arabic)


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lowest level is more probabilistic causally with dispositions and powers. In

between, the biological is based on both types with different meaning depending

on the degree of complexity of the organism.

As noted before, presenting such formal view of the model of nature is not

the important step; rather, what is important is the ability to construct a

complete model that proves to be internally consistent as well to be consistent

with proven facts of contemporary scientific knowledge. Realizing such

constraints requires obviously tremendous amount of work. Hence, this outline

represents only a preliminary formulation of a research program that aims at

participation of the contemporary Arab/Islamic societies in formulation of the

newly anticipated model of nature, and hence to participate in advancement of

contemporary human scientific endeavors.

Finally, it should now be clear that such a program, albeit that it is based

on the Arab/Islamic Worldview, it is notin any meaning an 'Islamic' religious

view. For science, despite that different societies with different worldviews

participate in its theoretical and practical realization, is nonetheless a human

activity. If what we introduce is an 'Islamic' scientific view in the religious sense,

then it will be confined to those who belief in Islam, and at the same time it will

be isolated from other sciences that are formulated by other non-believers. And

this is manifestly an invalid position.

What we present here is by all senses of the term a local participation by

Arab/Islamic societies in contemporary human endeavors to overcome the

current impasse of contemporary modern science.

6. Conclusion

In this paper we introduced the current state of contemporary scientific

thought which is marked by an essential schism between two views to nature.

The first is supporting the mechanistic view despite the increasing difficulties it

encounters both on the theoretical and practical levels in contemporary science.

The second introduces in various ways alternative non-mechanistic concepts that

purport to settle instead of the mechanistic view. Such a state of division, has led

to a situation in which we are unable to present a consistent idea about what are


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Samir Abuzaid

the basic constituents of nature, and what are the relations between them. In

short, due to such a situation we lack today a consistent model of nature.

Due to the importance of having a consistent and realistic model of nature

in advancement of science, we discussed in this paper the possibility of

introducing an alternative model that fulfills such condition, from the point of

view of contemporary Arabic or Arab/Islamic societies.

Therefore, we first introduced the conceptual problems that confront the

mechanistic view to nature and proved that the mechanistic model, at least in its

classical realistic sense, has effectively failed. Afterwards, we presented

alternative concepts that are introduced in contemporary philosophy of science

that contradicts the mechanistic view, and that represents possible candidates for

an alternative view.

In order to support such a picture we reviewed three recent views of

eminent contemporary philosophers of science as an example of the whole anti-

mechanistic trend. These works present in different forms essential criticism to

the mechanistic view and at the same time some alternative positions.

In the last section of this paper, we presented the concept of the

Arab/Islamic scientific and epistemological view, which is a sociological concept,

and notin any means a religious one. Through such a concept we reviewed the

basic scientific presuppositions of such a view that makes possible introducing an

alternative new model of nature. In order for such basic elements to be

transformed into a new model of nature, it should satisfy two basic conditions:

internal consistency and consistency with contemporary scientific facts.

Through such basic presuppositions we introduced a general framework

for a scientific program that aims at participating in advancement of

contemporary scientific thought participation in formulation of the new and

anticipated model of nature that would replace the already failed mechanistic

one.

epistemological basis of the 'new' model of nature

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