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Physics and the Problem of Historico-sociological Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Edgar Zilsel
Edgar Zilsel*
Affiliation:
The Institute of Social Research, New York, N. Y.
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Extract

The question as to the existence of laws in history has frequently been discussed. A new discussion may yet be useful, since some misconceptions based on incorrect comparisons with the natural sciences have been brought forward by both advocates and opponents of historical laws. We shall try to clarify the problem by applying a few ideas familiar to physicists and astronomers to the conditions peculiar to history. Physics is the most mature of all empirical sciences as to method. In physics the law-concept has been used for three hundred years. It may be assumed, therefore, that most of the difficulties in its application to other fields have their physical counterpart and can be clarified most easily with the help of physical concepts. A few preliminary examples of historical laws will be given towards the end of the article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 1941 , pp. 567 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1941

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Footnotes

∗

The article is part of a study undertaken with the help of a grant from the Social Science Research Council.

References

1 E.g. Kohlschuetter-Adams: intensity of certain spectral lines and luminosity of the star; Adams-Joy: precision of spectral lines and luminosity; Lindblad: intensity of the continuous spectrum and luminosity.

2 On the other hand the problems of modern quantum-mechanics have no bearing on our problem. Historical laws are macro-laws. Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy questions the existence of physical micro-laws; the validity of macro-laws is not affected by quantum-mechanics. The same holds for the so often discussed problem of determinism. Even individuals with “free” will could follow statistical macro-laws.

3 It asserts that ‘dispersion’ is nearly “normal” in such exceedingly small groups. Cf. L. v. Bortkiewicz: Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen, Leipzig 1898.

4 In physics the terms ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ laws are often used. This terminology has been avoided here, since it is too narrow and since, in philosophy and the social sciences, use of the word ‘dynamic’ often covers deficiencies in scientific analysis. The magic and animistic connotations of this term, discarded in physics three hundred years ago, have not quite disappeared from the social sciences.

5 After collection of the historical material about twenty other hypothetical laws have been given by the author of this article at the end of his Die Entstehung des Geniebegriffes. Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und des Fruehkapitalismus, Tuebingen 1926, pp. 324-326, With the necessary scientific accuracy a historical law has been given for the first time in Frederick J. Teggart: Rome and China. A Study of Correlations in Historical Events, Berkeley 1939. Professor Teggart verifies statistically that there is a correlation between political disturbances in Western China and the Asiatic frontier regions of the Roman empire on the one hand and barbaric invasions in the Danube and Rhine region on the other. Teggart's law, however, belongs to a more special type than the “laws” indicated above. It holds, although for many events, for late antiquity only. Evidently this does not impair its scientific value. Mechanics of rigid bodies also is valid in a limited period only. There were no rigid bodies 1010 years ago. In empirical science all laws hold as long only as the objects and systems they are concerned with exist.

6 Cf. F. J. Teggart, loc. cit., p. 245.

7 This originates in the fact that the patterns consent-refusal and affirmation-negation predominate in the province of emotional and intellectual processes.

8 The correspondence of one macro-parameter to a set of quite different micro-parameters is an instance of the relationship that, with a rather vague term, has been called emergence.