The article investigates the way in which Peter Mittelstaedt has been con- tributing to the philosophy of physics for half a century. It is shown that he pursues a path between rationalism and empiricism in the sense of Erhard Scheibe's philosophy of the physicists. Starting from Kant's a priori he gives a rational reconstruction of the conceptual revolutions of 20th century physics. The central topic of his philosophy of physics is the quest for semantic self-consistency, which for quantum mechanics is a hard nut to crack.
The article investigates the way in which Peter Mittelstaedt has been con- tributing to the philosophy of physics for half a century. It is shown that he pursues a path between rationalism and empiricism in the sense of Erhard Scheibe's philosophy of the physicists. Starting from Kant's a priori he gives a rational reconstruction of the conceptual revolutions of 20th century physics. The central topic of his philosophy of physics is the quest for semantic self-consistency, which for quantum mechanics is a hard nut to crack.
Niels Bohr and Philosophy of Physics: Twenty-First Century Perspectives examines the philosophical views, influences and legacy of the Nobel Prize physicist and philosophical spokesman of the quantum revolution, Niels Bohr. The sixteen contributions in this collection by some of the best contemporary philosophers and physicists writing on Bohr's philosophy today all carefully distinguish his subtle and unique interpretation of quantum mechanics from views often imputed to him under the banner of the “Copenhagen Interpretation.” With respect to philosophical influences on Bohr's outlook, the contributors analyse prominent similarities between his viewpoint and Kantian ways of thinking, the views of the Danish philosopher Harald Høffding, and themes characteristic of American pragmatism. In recognizing the importance of Bohr's epistemological naturalism they examine his defence of the indispensability of classical concepts from a variety of different perspectives. This collection shows us that Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics, now nearly a century old, still has the power to shed light on a variety of issues that have arisen only since his lifetime, as well as decoherence theory and other non-collapse interpretations. Balancing historical themes with contemporary discussions, Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Physics establishes Bohr's on-going contribution to the philosophy of physics and examines his place in the history of philosophy.
Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Physics: Twenty-First-Century Perspectives examines the philosophical views, influences and legacy of the Nobel Prize physicist and philosophical spokesman of the quantum revolution, Niels Bohr. The sixteen contributions in this collection by some of the best contemporary philosophers and physicists writing on Bohr’s philosophy today all carefully distinguish his subtle and unique interpretation of quantum mechanics from views often imputed to him under the banner of the “Copenhagen Interpretation.” With respect to philosophical influences on Bohr’s outlook, the contributors analyse prominent similarities between his viewpoint and Kantian ways of thinking, the views of the Danish philosopher Harald Høffding, and themes characteristic of American pragmatism. In recognizing the importance of Bohr’s epistemological naturalism they examine his defence of the indispensability of classical concepts from a variety of different perspectives. This collection shows us that Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, now nearly a century old, still has
In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that the empirical knowledge of the world depends on a priori conditions of human sensibility and understanding, i. e., our capacities of sense experience and concept formation. The objective knowledge presupposes, on one hand, space and time as a priori conditions of sensibility and, on another hand, a priori judgments, like the principle of causality, as constitutive conditions of understanding. The problem is that in the XX century the physical science completely changed how we conceive our knowledge of the world. Face to this new situation, what was changed in our classical reason? However, if the transcendental point of view is adopted, in the specific case of quantum mechanics, we have to wonder about the general conditions of this theory that make possible such knowledge, which predictive value is much more accurate than the classical physics. The aim of this work is firstly to show the Kantian implications on Bohr’s interpretation of quantum phenomena and secondly to provide an overview of the key elements for understanding the transcendental locus of ordinary language in the quantum mechanics context, in order to give support to a transcendental pragmatic position in the analysis of science.
Peter Mittelstaedt Dordrecht-Holland D Reidel 1976 pp x + 211 price Dfl 50, $18.50 ( cased ), Dfl 33, $11 ( paperback ) The book originated in lectures first published in Germany in 1963, now translated in an expanded English version. The author takes a broadly Kantian point of view in analysing the conceptual structures presupposed by physics, and covers problems of space, time, and geometry in relation to relativity theory, and measurement, substance, causality and quantum logic in relation to quantum theory.
This book concerns the metasemantics of quantum mechanics (QM). Roughly, it pursues an investigation at the intersection of philosophy of physics and philosophy of language, and it offers a critical analysis of rival explanations of the semantic facts of standard QM. Two problems for such explanations are discussed: categoricity and permanence. New results include 1) a reconstruction of Einstein's incompleteness argument, which concludes that a local, separable, and categorical QM cannot exist, 2) a reinterpretation of Bohr's principle of correspondence, grounded in the principle of permanence, 3) a meaning-variance argument for quantum logic, which follows a line of critical reflections initiated by Weyl, and 4) an argument for semantic indeterminacy leveled against inferentialism about QM, inspired by Carnap's work in the philosophy of classical logic.
The present research offers thesis of experiences, truth and false values, and thus the socio-scientific understanding of knowledge theories. From the philosophical journey of Heraclitus, Parmenidian, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Hume and Kant, we construct the theory of goodwill, global wisdom and local experiences in the natural philosophy. Given a set of smooth experience functions, we have demonstrated that the Descarte's knowledge follows from the corresponding Hume's definition of the knowledge, as the late time effect. Following the notion that the reality consists of events which are not connected by certain law(s) but they possess an association, contiguity and continuity, we examine the quantum viewpoints, viz. the philosophical quest of Hume and Kant. From the perspective of rational philosophy, the statistical and partially ordered knowledge theories characterize the classical and quantum endeavors towards the existential category, social vacuumness and fundamental theories. The thesis of experiences and goodwill theory are discussed towards the metaphysical theories of natural philosophy.