The Quest for Reality Bohr and Wittgenstein - two complementary views

by Stenholm, Stig

• ISBN13: 9780199603589
• ISBN10: 0199603588
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In both science and philosophy, the twentieth century saw a radical breakdown of certainty in the human worldview, as quantum uncertainty and linguistic ambiguity destroyed the comfortable certitudes of the past. As these disciplines form the foundation for a human position in the world, a major epistemological reorganization had to take place. In this book, quantum theorist Stig Stenholm presents Bohr and Wittgenstein, in physics and in philosophy, as central figures representing this revision. Each of them took up the challenge of replacing apparent order and certainty with a provisional understanding based on limited concepts in constant flux. Stenholm concludes that the modern synthesis created by their heirs is far from satisfactory, and the story is so far an unfinished one. The book will appeal to any researcher in either discipline curious about the foundation of modern science, and works to provoke a renewal of discussion, and the eventual emergence of a reformed clarity and understanding.

Author Biography

Stig Stenholm has done distinguished work in quantum optics for 40 years, holding professorships and research positions at the Universities of Stuttgart and Helsinki, at IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, California and at the Optical Sciences Center, Tucson, Arizona, before his retirement from KTH Stockholm in 2004. He has received the Alexander von Humboldt Award, Germany, and the The Homen Prize in Physics from the Societas Scientiarum Fennica.

Table of Contents

Prelude: The modern stance	p. 1
A time of change	p. 1
Outline of argument	p. 3
Certainty lost	p. 6
Algorithmic or analogical thinking?	p. 8
Pictures in the head	p. 10
Language and mind	p. 10
The whiff of truth	p. 12
Declaration of intent	p. 14
Role of philosophy	p. 14
Stranger in a strange land	p. 16
The metaphysical observer	p. 18
Twilight of the gods	p. 22
The dawn of darkness	p. 22
Cultural backgrounds	p. 24
Wittgenstein's Vienna	p. 24
Bohr's Copenhagen	p. 31
Kierkegaard as symbol of the times	p. 33
The view from Copenhagen	p. 48
Bohr the master	p. 48
Life and position	p. 48
Background and influences	p. 50
References relating to Bohr	p. 52
The life and opinions of Høffding	p. 52
Bohr's legacy	p. 57
Bohr's conceptual analysis	p. 57
Bohr's view of physics	p. 59
The late views, 1958-1962	p. 66
Rosenfeld's approach	p. 68
The life of Léon Rosenfeld	p. 68
Rosenfeld on epistemology	p. 69
Copenhagen summarized	p. 75
Bohr's pragmatism	p. 76
William James and pragmatism	p. 77
Russian sensitivity	p. 81
Epistemological interlude	p. 86
Background considerations	p. 86
Philosophy and science	p. 86
Words and worlds	p. 87
The human position	p. 88
Animal awareness	p. 88
Consciousness itself	p. 90
The sensational ambience	p. 91
In the back of my mind	p. 92
Ways of representation	p. 94
Constituting reality	p. 94
The conversing human	p. 96
Capacity for symbolic forms	p. 98
The use of formal structures	p. 100
Role of formalism	p. 101
Symbols used and misused	p. 101
Tests and classifications	p. 104
Overcoming paradoxes	p. 107
Formal procedures in physics	p. 109
The test (forming a judgement)	p. 109
What entities can we posit?	p. 112
The complement: what we do not assert	p. 113
Is there a total world?	p. 114
Classical approach	p. 115
Quantum approach	p. 116
Physical applications	p. 119
Numbers of objects	p. 119
Space	p. 121
Time	p. 124
What the theoretical structures tell us	p. 127
Quantum theory revisited	p. 127
Truth and consequences	p. 128
Wittgenstein enters the scene	p. 130
Life and work	p. 130
Background for Wittgenstein	p. 131
Influences on Wittgenstein	p. 136
Reading in philosophy	p. 136
The role of Weininger	p. 137
Role of Boltzmann	p. 142
Interview with von Wright	p. 146
Stages of Wittgenstein's philosophy	p. 148
The early Wittgenstein	p. 148
Wittgenstein's influence	p. 153
The later Wittgenstein	p. 155
What can we really know?	p. 160
Moore on knowledge	p. 160
Wittgenstein on certainty	p. 160
von Wright on certainty	p. 162
Shaky foundations	p. 164
In logic we trust?	p. 164
Quest for certainty	p. 164
The frail temple of mathematics	p. 165
Interpretation of mathematics	p. 166
The beauty of formalism	p. 167
Mathematics as a sovereign world	p. 171
Logic and language	p. 172
Language	p. 172
On objects	p. 174
Signs and symbols	p. 176
Procedures of mathematics	p. 177
Reasons and causes	p. 179
Wittgenstein on foundations of mathematics	p. 179
Physics interface	p. 183
Tractatus and the classical world	p. 183
The binary description of reality	p. 186
Quantum physics turns to language	p. 187
Wittgenstein and physics	p. 189
Science and method, method of science	p. 189
Physical objects	p. 191
Language and symbolism	p. 192
Phenomena	p. 193
Experiment	p. 195
Philosophical consequences	p. 196
The right to freedom	p. 196
Pragmatism at stake	p. 197
Summary of pragmatism	p. 197
Pragmatism in the modern world	p. 198
Husserl's last stand	p. 199
Life and fate	p. 199
Husserl's main ideas	p. 200
The crises in European science	p. 201
Metaphysics and reality	p. 204
What can we know?	p. 204
Embedding knowledge into reality	p. 204
On what there is and is not	p. 205
Beyond the veil of endeavors	p. 206
Leeway for beliefs	p. 206
Role of religion	p. 208
Concluding epilogue	p. 213
References	p. 216
Index	p. 221
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