Thinking About Thinking

AN INQUIRY INTO MEANING & TRUTH--Bertrand Russell--Norton ($3.75).

THE PROMISE OF SCIENTIFIC HUMANISM --Oliver L Reiser--Oskar Piest ($4).

The world is beset with problems which badly need thinking through. First problem, say professional thinkers--i.e., philosophers--is how to go about thinking at all. Two new books attack the impasse. Bertrand Russell pursues An Inquiry into

Meaning & Truth. So does Oliver L. Reiser, philosophy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, who then proceeds "toward a unification of scientific, religious, social and economic thought" in The Promise of Scientific Humanism.

"Practical" men always scorn the philosopher as ineffectual, blathering away while the caissons and tumbrels roll. But philosophers deviously have their days. Absent-minded Philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel innocently begot a dialectic, which begot Marx's socialism, which begot V. I. Lenin, who begot a revolution that made "practical" men tremble in their boots. Russell and Reiser hope that their logic, too, will somehow beget a revolution.

Russell's lucidly dull book merges 1) semantics, the study of the "relation between linguistic and nonlinguistic events," 2) metaphysics, the study of how closely man's beagle mind can sniff its way to "truth." Typical Russell arguments:

-- "We do not know that Scott was the author of Waverley; what we know is that he was an author of Waverley. For aught we know, somebody in Mars may have also written Waverley."

-- "The play Hamlet consists entirely of false propositions, which transcend experience, but which are certainly significant, since they can arouse emotions."

-- "I believe even the most monistic of philosophers would notice a tiger, and not stop to argue that it could not be validly considered except in relation to its background."

Russell's conclusion: "... I believe that, with sufficient caution, the properties of language may help us to understand the structure of the world." Presumably such teachings can debauch the young, for Russell notes: "This book would have formed the substance of my lectures at the College of the City of New York, if my appointment there had not been annulled."

Reiser's book is lucid, ambitious, profound. It was inspired by science's discovery of more things in heaven & earth than were dreamt of in former philosophies. "The time is ripe for a new philosophy," says Philosopher Reiser, and he hopes its main characteristics will be 1) a non-Aristotelian logic, 2) a theory of emergent evolution.

Aristotelian logic, Reiser says, has dominated Western thought for 2,000 years, confuses science and society by its omnipresent lingering. This logic is two-valued: a thing is either true or not true. Non-Aristotelian logic (which Bertrand Russell rejects) is many-valued, fills the chasm between true and not true with probabilities. A four-valued logic would permit: true, probably true, possibly true, not true. (The word "and" then acquires 14.348,907 distinct meanings.*) Such logic is not speculative nonsense but a tool urgently needed, for example, by atom-studying physicists. It is also vital in comprehending the relativity-universe prescribed by the theory of emergent evolution.

The theory of emergent evolution holds that space, time, matter, life are not independent of each other but form an organic whole. Reiser's basic space-time-matter trinity is about as mystical a concept as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He finds it religiously inspiring, scientifically sound. Typical points:

-- "The human time-sense is a function of the velocity constants of the chemical reactions in the brain. . . ." ^ "Life ... is not a superphysical entity; it is a form of electrochemical behavior."

-- "Religion is a transmutation of a form of response in lower animals known as heliotropism. . . ."

This space-time-matter organism is forever evolving. Mankind is the whole organism's "developing nervous system," and is due for greater changes still. Reiser insists that men must not leave their evolution merely up to cosmic rays as in the past, but must take their fate in their own hands, construct a rational, planetary society. If man does so, promises Reiser, "he will be superseded by the superman."

"The human race has apparently set out to sound all the depths and shoals of the cosmic environment. It is a wonderful and a fearful quest."

* So calculates Cornell Mathematician J. B. Rosser.

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