Philosophy in Science

by Heller, Michael; Szczerbinska-Polak, Malgorzata (CON); Kemp, Kenneth W.; Kieron, Zuzanna Maslanka

• ISBN13: 9783642177040
• ISBN10: 3642177042
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-18
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

The traditional topics of the "philosophy of nature" '” space, time, causality, the structure of the universe '” are overwhelmingly present in our modern scientific theories. This book traces the complex paths that discussion of these topics has followed, from Plato and Aristotle, through Descartes, Leibniz, Kant and other great thinkers, right up to the relativistic cosmologies and the grand unified theories of contemporary science. In the light of this historical development, it becomes clear that modern science gives us not only a technological power over the world, but also a deeper understanding of physical reality. In this sense, science could be regarded as an heir to the traditional "philosophy of nature". Moreover, the reader will learn why science itself deserves to be the subject of philosophical reflection.

Table of Contents

The First Task of the Philosophy of Nature-The Problem of Elementarily	p. 1
Biographical Notes	p. 4
Appendix: How Critical Thought Transformed the Ancient Picture of the World	p. 4
The Philosophical Myth of Creation-The Platonic Philosophy of Nature	p. 7
Ideas and Their Shadows	p. 7
Becoming and Being	p. 9
The Prototype of the Concept of Space	p. 10
Time: The Moving Image of Eternity	p. 11
Symmetries	p. 12
The Achievements of the Platonic Philosophy of Nature	p. 13
Biographical Notes	p. 14
Appendix: Platonism's "Ideas" in the History of Western Philosophy	p. 14
Aristotle's Physics	p. 17
Introduction: From the World of Ideas to Individual Objects	p. 17
The Ontological Point of View	p. 18
The Point of View of Physics	p. 20
A Philosophy of Change	p. 22
The Theory of Hylomorphism	p. 23
The Principles of Aristotle's Dynamics	p. 24
The Significance of Aristotle's Physics	p. 26
Biographical Notes	p. 27
Appendix: Aristotelianism and Platonism-The Rivalry of Systems	p. 28
Aristotle's Method of Cosmological Speculation	p. 31
Appendix: Ancient Ideas About the Structure of the Universe	p. 35
Descartes' Mechanism	p. 37
The Road to the Empirical Method	p. 37
The Geometrical Mechanics of Descartes	p. 38
The Geometrical Mechanism of Descartes	p. 39
In the Context of System	p. 41
Biographical Notes	p. 41
Appendix: The Philosophy of Nature from the Middle Ages to Modern Times	p. 43
Isaac Newton and the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy	p. 47
Introduction: Towards a New Method	p. 47
Newton's Introduction to the Principia	p. 49
Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy	p. 53
The Scholium	p. 55
Biographical Notes	p. 58
Appendix: The Mechanistic Image of the World in Newton's Principia	p. 59
The World of Leibniz: The Best of All Possible Worlds	p. 61
Leibniz and Descartes: A Contrast	p. 61
The Logic of God and the Logic of the World	p. 62
The World of Substances	p. 63
Teleology of the World	p. 65
From Metaphysical Dynamics to Physical Dynamics	p. 66
The Relational Theory of Space and Time	p. 68
Biographical Notes	p. 70
Appendix: The Leibniz-Clarke Debate	p. 70
Immanuel Kant: The A Priori Conditions of the Sciences	p. 73
The Fundamental Question: How Are the Sciences Possible?	p. 73
Synthetic A Priori Judgments	p. 74
How Is Pure Mathematics Possible? The Categories of Space and Time	p. 75
How Is a Pure Science of Nature Possible?	p. 78
The Boundaries of Philosophy	p. 79
A Critique of the Kantian Critique	p. 80
Biographical Notes	p. 83
Appendix: The Kant-Laplace Cosmological Hypothesis	p. 83
The Romantic Philosophy of Nature	p. 85
Introduction: From Mysticism to Idealism	p. 85
The Mysticism of Being	p. 86
Fichte: The Romantic Theory of Science	p. 88
Schilling's Speculative Physics	p. 89
A Philosophical Science of Nature	p. 90
The Debate About Hegel	p. 92
Evaluation and Conclusions	p. 95
Biographical Notes	p. 97
Appendix: Romanticism in Poland-Between Philosophy and Literature	p. 98
The Cosmology of Whitehead: The Universe as Process	p. 101
Sources of the Great System	p. 101
Speculative Philosophy and the Empirical Sciences	p. 102
The Conception of Nature	p. 104
The Theory of the Bifurcation of Nature and Its Critique	p. 105
Space and Time	p. 107
The Metaphysics of Process	p. 108
Some Remarks in Conclusion	p. 110
Biographical Notes	p. 111
Appendix: Process Philosophy and Its Continuation in Modern Thought	p. 111
Popper's Open Universe	p. 113
The General Outline of Popper's Thought	p. 113
Popper's Intellectual Morality	p. 114
Antiessentialism and the Defense of Philosophy	p. 117
Popper's Three Worlds	p. 118
Popper's Philosophical and Cosmological Indeterminism	p. 119
The Metaphysics of Probabilities	p. 122
The Strategy of Evolution	p. 123
Concluding Remarks	p. 124
Biographical Notes	p. 125
Appendix: The Influence of Popper's Thought on Contemporary Philosophy of Science	p. 125
Science as Philosophy	p. 129
From Science to Philosophy	p. 129
Mechanism and Its Fall	p. 130
Philosophical Problems of the Theory of Relativity	p. 133
Philosophical Problems of Quantum Mechanics	p. 141
The Philosophical Problems of the Unification of Physics	p. 144
Biographical Notes	p. 147
Appendix: The Dream of Unity-A Sketch of the Philosophy of Science of Albert Einstein	p. 148
Problems and Methods of the Philosophy of Nature	p. 153
The Growth of Criticism	p. 153
The Existence of the Philosophy of Nature	p. 155
The Rationality of the World	p. 158
The Debate About Substance	p. 162
Other Problems of the Philosophy of Nature	p. 164
Biographical Notes	p. 165
Appendix: Various Conceptions of the Philosophy of Nature	p. 166
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