Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas
by K.T.S. Sarao | 2013 | 141,449 words
This page relates ‘Action at A Distance� of the study of the Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas, from the perspective of linguistics. The Five Nikayas, in Theravada Buddhism, refers to the five books of the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of Sutra�), which itself is the second division of the Pali Tipitaka of the Buddhist Canon (literature).
2.2. Action at A Distance
Descartes
As we have seen, Descartes was firmly against the idea that human brains were just machines. But he admitted that many parts of our bodies acted mechanically. It is important for us to consider Descartes� view of physical bodies in general. His name was linked with the so-called ‘mechanical philosophy�. Descartes was not its originator, but was one of its firmest adherents.
The idea of the mechanical philosophy was that all physical objects behaved according to mechanical principles. There was continual debate as to whether anything could act ‘at a distance�, or whether there must always be contact between objects for one to act on another. Descartes was one of those who believed that forces could not act on matter by travelling through empty space; there could be no ‘action at a distance�. There had to be a material medium through which the forces would act; hence the notion of ‘ether�, a material substance occupying all of space, was born.
Newton
Like others of his time, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was alarmed that corpuscular theories of physics might lead to atheism. In Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism, Dobbs et al. (1998) point out:
Although the ancient atomists had not really been atheists in any precise modern sense, they had frequently been so labelled because their atoms in random mechanical motion received no guidance from the gods. Descartes, Gassendi and Charleton had been at pains to allay the fear that the revived corpuscular philosophy would carry the stigma of atheism adhering to ancient atomism. They had solved the problem, they thought, by having God endow the particles of matter with motion at the moment of creation. (pp. 21)