 The first decades of the
twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a new
figure on the European intellectual landscape –
the philosopher-physicist. During this period many
leading physicists cast themselves in the role of
philosophers as they grappled with the
transformation in the foundations of their
discipline and even with wider questions.
Einstein, Weyl, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Bohr
were among the more prominent physicists of this
era who saw their work as physicists as deeply
connected with philosophy. Much of the recent
historical scholarship has focused on the
epistemological problems posed by new developments
in relativity and quantum theory, and the debates
over the status of space, time and causality that
took place in the 1920s and 30s. While this is
certainly one important aspect of the kind of
philosophical activity that physicists engaged in,
it represents only part of a much larger story. In
this paper, I argue that a more complete
understanding of the philosophical ambitions of
the philosopher-physicist requires that we pay
attention to the discourse on the ‘unity of
knowledge’, which rose to prominence during this
period. While this is normally associated with
‘unity of science’ movement spearheaded by Otto
Neurath, one can find a wide range of different
views on this subject. In this talk I will attempt
to trace two dominant perspectives on the unity of
knowledge that emerged in the 1930s and 40s: (i)
the positivist-enlightenment and (ii) the
neo-humanist ideal. Each represented a different
response to question of the value of science and
its relationship to philosophy.
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Wolfgang Pauli
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Werner
Heisenberg
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Hermann Weyl
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Erwin Schrödinger
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tirsdag, den 7. maj
2013, kl. 17.00
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