The Philosophy of the Physicists

Max Planck, Walter Henry Johnston

Anin Holden

A physicist's view of the universe is largely derived from Aristotle's natural philosophy of seeking the patterns observed in nature. This view has matured over the years through the development of quantitative experimentation and the mathematical formulation of theories. However, one part of natural philosophy that has remained the province of philosophy, rather than science, is the nature of observation itself: what is the meaning of our awareness, our sensations, and ourselves?

B. Harrow

Alexander A. Pechenkin

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is usually called standard because it is presented in the basic textbooks on the field. In the USSR this inter­pretation was treated from the point of view of the philosophy of dialectic mate­rialism, which was taken as the state ideology. This treatment was oscillated from negative and rejecting of definitely positive. The Copenhagen interpreta­tion has been rejected by the Marxist philosopher A. Maximov, it was severely criticized by the physicist D. Blohintsev, who supported the ensemble approach to quantum mechanics, it was adopted by the mathematician-physicist V. Fock, who proposed some corrections and reservations to it. The Soviet ideology was not completely homogeneous and stable. From the very beginning it contained the philosophy of activity which was something like the “shadow component”. By accepting the philosophy of activity the physicist M. Markov provided the authentic presentation of the Copenhagen interpretation in 1947. In 1980 the philosophy of activity became popular among Russian intellectuals, and the philosopher I. Alexeev published the detailed presentation of the Copenhagen interpretation by treating it as methodologically productive.

Erhard Scheibe

W. V. Houston