The philosophical basis of physics

Irina A. Rybakova

W. Heisenberg's treatise “Reality and its order” is a philosophical work of a scientist and philosopher and reflects the totality of his views on various aspects of reality. In this article, the author attempts to analyze the central concepts of quantum mechanics, “state” and “time”, as well as to determine how relevant the ideas of the treatise may be in the world of modern natural science. This point seems especially important, given the time of writing the treatise (no later than 1942), which gives reason to recall the philosophical foundations on which physics rests, and give them a new interpretation that meets modern challenges. The article shows the need to build modern physics on the principles of metaphysics, that is, to study the subject of physics from the position that the world has a metaphysical basis. Statements about the nature of time by various authors are given: from ancient natural philosophers (Aristotle) to medieval thinkers (Augustine, Grossetest), as well as modern researchers (A.Yu. Sevalnikov, Yu.S. Vladimirov, V.D. Zakharov), etc.

W. V. Houston

Giulio Peruzzi, Elena Castellani

We think that, at the present state of affairs, there is no general agreement on what "foundations of physics" and "philosophy of physics" exactly are. Starting by considering the nature of both disciplines, we then proceed by arguing, on the basis of some significant examples, a substantial interrelationship between these two approaches to the analysis of conceptual and interpretative problems in contemporary physics.

B. Harrow

Max Planck, Walter Henry Johnston

Miguel Ferrero, David Cienfuegos Salgado, J. L. Sánchez‐Gómez

It has been frequently said that "Quantum Mechanics is Magic".e real fact is just the opposite: quantum mechanics is not magic, it is rather one of the best scientific theories in terms of the amplitude and exactness of its predictions.Quantum Mechanics surprises us as it does not satisfy some a priori principles usually considered to be necessary preconditions to build up physics (as Einstein dixit).As these principles are also the basis of some important philosophical theories of science, these philosophical theories cannot be well founded.After criticizing them, we offer the preliminary lines of a methodology of physics adapted to the formalism of quantum mechanics.