Dewey's position towards the “spectator” and Gendlin's position towards the "idealized observer": based on their views of old and new physics

Gendlin wrote a paper on physics with its expert in 1983. In it, the modern quantum theory that has replaced classical physics is briefly described as follows:

In quantum theory ... the basic concept is that of interaction; and, we will argue, it is natural in quantum theories to regard location and time as derivative from interaction, and to distinguish actual interaction from mere comparison. (Gendlin & Lemke, 1983, p. 63)

This view of quantum theory as an interactional idea did not begin with Gendlin. It will be helpful to understand the critical position of the “idealized observer” in Gendlin’s later work if we consider what an earlier philosopher, Dewey, had to say about old and new physics. Dewey criticized the determinism of classical physics from Newton to Laplace, calling it the “spectator theory of knowledge,” and reviewed how Heisenberg’s quantum theory replaced it:

The future and the past belong to the same completely determinate and fixed scheme. Observations, when correctly conducted, merely register this fixed state of changes according to laws of objects whose essential properties are fixed. The implications of the positions are expressed in Laplace’s well-known saying that were there a knowledge (in mechanical terms) of the state of the universe at any one time its whole future could be predicted—or deduced. It is this philosophy which Heisenberg’s principle has upset, a fact implied in calling it a principle of indeterminacy. (Dewey, 1929, pp. 201-2)

After this overview of the ideas of classical physics, Dewey briefly reviewed the principle of indeterminacy as an embodiment of the non- spectator’s, or interactional idea that the act of observing itself affects the object being observed, as follows:

When we perceive an object by touch, we are all aware that the contact causes a slight change in what we touch. When dealing with large objects, this change is insignificant, but when we touch a small object or an object moving at high speed, a considerable change will occur. One might think that the displacement thus produced could be calculated and taken into account to accurately determine the position and momentum of the touched object. However, this result is theoretical and would have to be confirmed by other observations. (Dewey, 1929, p. 203)

He then concluded as follows:

The principle of indeterminancy thus presents itself as the final step in the dislodgment of the old spectator theory of knowledge. It marks the acknowledgment, within scientific procedure itself, of the fact that knowing is one kind of interaction which goes on within the world. (Dewey, 1929, pp. 204-5)

Keeping in mind Dewey’s contrast between old and new physics, it will provide some background for Gendlin’s criticism since the ’80s that the “The space-time continuity of the observer in [classical] physics is abstracted from the continuity of living bodies.” (Gendlin et al., 1984, p. 260).

... we humans cannot find ourselves within the scientific picture, since it consists of presenteds. We seem to be only the perceivers-of or constructors-of the picture, as if we were outside the universe, the perceiver who does not appear in the percept. (Gendlin, 1992, p. 344)

If there is no implying, if all events are only what they already are, then what connects events? It is conceived as a link between time and space provided by an "idealized observer." ... Empty space and empty time are assumed to consist of mere points that must wait for the observer to connect them. (Gendlin, 1991, p. 108)

Thus, it can be said that Dewey’s concept of the spectator is succeeded and critically examined by Gendlin’s concept of the idealized observer.

Dewey and Gendlin’s review of the history of physics can further highlight Gendlin’s idea that to understand the living processes of plants, animals, and humans, we should not pretend that we, as observers, did not exist but that we should also be included in the consideration:

Mind is no longer a spectator beholding the world from without .... From knowing as an outside beholding to knowing as an active participant in the drama of an on-moving world is the historical transition whose record we have been following. (Dewey, 1929, p. 291)

The human sciences study the observer and therefore cannot assume a constant and abstracted observer-continuity. We must see how this observer-continuity is generated. Then we can relate science's space and objects to other kinds of space and objects that also can be generated. (Gendlin et al., 1984, pp. 259-60)

In light of Dewey, we can also say that the roots of the following argument in the later “A Process Model” become clear:

The spectator theory of knowing may, humanly speaking, have been inevitable when thought was viewed as an exercise of a “reason” independent of the body, which by means of purely logical operations attained truth. It is an anachronism now that we have the model of experimental procedure before us and are aware of the role of organic acts in all mental processes. (Dewey, 1929, p. 245)

Shall we now study the observers (ourselves) by positing still another set of observers to connect us in their spectated space and time? Concepts that consist only of external positional relations are too poor to enable us to think about what living bodies can do, even plants and certainly animals, let alone ourselves. (Gendlin, 2018, pp. 34-5)

Note

The word “spectator” is used not only by Dewey but also by Gendlin. For example, this word is used in Chapter I of “A Process Model” to describe en#1. However, the word “spectator,” used in Chapter I, including “hunter,” and the word “idealized observer,” used in Chapter IV to describe a scientist’s cognition, are different in scope and do not seem to mean the same thing at all. On this point, Dr. Luke Jaaniste provided a valuable suggestion.

References

Dewey, J. (1929). The quest for certainty. Minton, Balch.

Gendlin, E. T. (1991). Thinking beyond patterns: body, language and situations. In B. den Ouden, & M. Moen (Eds.), The Presence of Feeling in Thought (pp. 21–151). Peter Lang.

Gendlin, E.T. (1992). The primacy of the body, not the primacy of perception. Man and World, 25 (3-4), 341-353.

Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.

Gendlin, E.T. & J. Lemke (1983). A critique of relativity and localization. Mathematical Modelling, 4, 61-72.

Gendlin, E.T., Grindler, D. & McGuire, M. (1984). Imagery, body, and space in focusing. In A.A. Sheikh (Ed.), Imagination and healing (pp. 259-86). Baywood.