On William A. Wallace, O.P., The Modeling of Nature

The Thomist 61 (1997): 625-40 ON WILLIAM A. WALLACE, O.P., THE MODELING OF NATURE1 BENEDICT M. AsHLEY, 0.P., and ERIC A. REITAN, 0.P. St. Louis University St. Louis, Missouri TER HALF A CENTURY of logical reconstructionist hilosophy of science, the academic iconoclast Paul eyerabend declared in 1970 that the philosophy of science was "a discipline with a great past." In this masterful volume, after a lifetime of research, teaching, and writing in the history of science, philosophy, and theology, William A. Wallace shows that the philosophy of science may indeed be a discipline with a future-as long as it remains in contact with the actual historical episodes of real scientific achievement. By his many studies on the scientific methodology of Galileo2 and its origins and by his important two-volume work, Causality and Scientific Explanation,3 Wallace had laid the foundation for the present clearly written, eminently readable, and well-documented volume, in which he presents and defends a realistic philosophy of nature and natural science. Basing his presentation on empirical common sense, a realist view of nature and causality, and on critically accepted scientific achievements, Wallace shows how a natural philosophy that does not presuppose but rather grounds a metaphysics, in concert with a realist interpretation of scientific methodology and scientific discovery, has in fact served as the 1 William A. Wallace, O.P., The Modeling ofNature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy ofNature in Synthesis (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), xvii+ 450 pp. 2 His major studies are Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science (Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1984) and Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992). 3 Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1974. 625 626 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, 0.P., and ERIC A. REITAN, O.P. foundation for the unique cumulative growth of scientific knowledge throughout the history of Western civilization. Wallace divides his book into two main parts. In the first (chaps. 1-5) he discusses the fundamental concepts of the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, biology, and human psychology. In the second part (chaps. 6-10), using actual successful episodes from the history of science, he shows how a realistic scientific epistemology enables the human mind to acquire true scientific understanding of natural realities in terms of their real causes and natural properties. The first part is essentially a contemporary version of the first few books of Aristotle's Physics and De Anima, rewritten in light of modern scientific advances, with the aid of "modeling techniques." Using the models (diagrams and schemas) that he has developed in major articles over the years, Wallace elucidates the Aristotelian concepts of "physical substance," "form," "matter," "nature," and cause" in order to present a holistic understanding of the physical realities that serve as the basis for both our common everyday experience and our sophisticated scientific theories. After a general discussion of "nature," "form," and "matter" (chap. 1), Wallace considers atoms and molecules and their compounds, as well as the processes of radioactive decay and chemical interaction, and even the distant realities of stars and planets in his discussion of the inorganic (chap. 2). Building on his discussion of the inorganic, Wallace considers living things-plants and animals-in chapter 3, where he discusses the vital operations of metabolism and homeostasis, morphological development and growth, as well as DNA replication, and the animal activities of sensation and desire. In the next two chapters, he turns to a consideration of knowledge and human nature. Using some of the insights of contemporary cognitive science, along with recent researches involving Periplaneta computatrix (a computer-simulated "insect"), as well as traditional concepts of sensation, perception, and intellection, the external and internal senses, and intentionality, Wallace presents an up-to-date version of an essentially Aristotelian-Thomistic theory of cognition (chap. 4). Then, by bringing together the principal concepts and insights ON WILLIAM A. WALLACE, THE MODELING OFNATURE 627 of the first four chapters, he discusses the character of the human person and human nature, showing how the inorganic elements and the life functions of vegetative and sensory...