The rules of scientific discovery as formulated by K. Popper are briefly reviewed. Historical examples such as the prediction of planets and outstanding events in elementary particle physics are used to show how these rules are applied by the working physicist. Thus these rules are shown to be actual tools rather than abstract norms in the development of physics.

Since the 20th century the quantum physics has shown various phenomena, judged as “seldom and not easily understandable” by the theories of classic physics. From the beginning of the “Kopenhagener Deutung,” Einstein claimed against Heisenberg, Bohr, etc. that the particle physics lacks “physical reality.” A number of physicists have tried to clarify the labyrinth of particle as a minimal substance in the phenomena of the micro world. The entanglement of the “double particle” emitted from a π-meson in its teleportation is (...) one of those phenomena. However, a successful new thesis has also become a target for the antithesis by deputies. Even if the “uncertainty” of an emitted light quantum that is received by the detector “either as a particle or as wave” has been reduced in our time by using probability calculations and new experimental physical facilities, the principal character of particles based on the “uncertainty relation” has not been changed. Although Heisenberg’s formula of the uncertainty relation could be “renewed” by completing certain operational components substituted by some physicists, the fundamental reality of phenomena of particle physics remain: The “physical reality” manifested by Einstein based on his glorious success of the Special and General Theory of Relativity cannot be valid in the micro-world phenomena.Pietschmann, a well-known theoretical physicist in Vienna, and Hashi, a philosopher teaching and researching interdisciplinary philosophy in Vienna, highlight the essential problems of particle physics and clarify them in regards to ontological and epistemological aspects. The dialogue has its origin in the hypothesis that the particle physics needs a logical interpretation with completely new ontological principles. In addition, the fundamental ontology of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and its further development to rational philosophy of East Asia has various indications and contributions for an ontological epistemology of particle physics. (shrink)

Der Quantenphysiker Herbert Pietschmann beschaftigt sich seit Jahrzehnten mit dem Phanomen Kommunikation. Der Kommunikationswissenschaftler Erich Hamberger setzt sich seit langem mit der Frage der Adaptierung erkenntnistheoretischer Einsichten der Quantentheorie fur die Geistes- und Biowissenschaften auseinander. 2003 begegnen sich die beiden - und staunen uber die "verschrankten Erkenntnisinteressen". 2006 bestreiten sie eine erste gemeinsame universitare Lehrveranstaltung. 2011 folgt Das Phanomen Kommunikation transdisziplinar betrachtet. Aus ihrer Zusammenarbeit ist dieses Buch entstanden. Naturwissenschaft arbeitet auf der Grundlage des mechanistischen Denkrahmens. Die bisher (...) einzige Ausnahme ist die Quantenphysik. Weder Leben noch Kommunikation ist mittels des mechanistischen Denkrahmens zu verstehen. Auch der Denkrahmen der Quantenphysik reicht dazu nicht aus. Der Bedarf nach adaquatem Denken im Bereich der Kommunikation kann durch quantenphysikalisches Denken NICHT befriedigt werden, jedoch kann dadurch ein Weg aufgezeigt werden, wie ein adaquater Denkrahmen zu gestalten ist. (shrink)

A study of problems, all revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, this book starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy which served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. Davidson examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect in the three philosophers and covers such subjects as: the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause; the emanation of the lower world from the transcendent active (...) intellect; stages of human intellect; illumination of the human intellect by the transcendent active intellect; conjunction of the human intellect with the transcendent active intellect; prophecy; and human immortality. Davidson shows that medieval Jewish philosophers and the Latin Scholastics had differing perceptions of Averroes because they happened to use works belonging to different periods of his philosophic career. (shrink)

PAUL OPPENHEIM and HILARY PUTNAM Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis 1. Introduction 1.1. The expression "Unity of Science" is often encountered, ...

Predication and the problems of universals and individuation have preoccupied philosophers from Plato (if not before) to the present. Concerns about relations and the special problems posed by relational predication came later - along with the explicit recognition of facts as purported entities that make a judgment true, rather than false, and resultant questions about the structure of such grounds of truth. The essays in the volume explore aspects of the history of the classic issues raised as well as alternative (...) attempts to deal with such issues. (shrink)

My response to commentators includes a suggestion that an additional principle be added to the list presented in the target article: the notion of human society as a complex adaptive system with emergent properties. In addition, I clear up several misunderstandings shared by several commentators, and explore some themes concerning future directions in the unification of the behavioral science. (Published Online April 27 2007).

Thought, Fact, and Reference was first published in 1978.Against a background of criticism of alternative accounts, Professor Hochberg presents an analysis of thought, reference, and truth within the tradition of logical atomism. He analyzes G. E. Moore's early attack on idealism and examines the influence of Moore on the development of Bertrand Russell's and Ludwig Wittgenstein's logical atomism. He traces an early divergence between Russell and Wittgenstein, on the one side, and Moore and Gottlob Frege on the other, into variants (...) recently advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, Gustav Bergmann, and others. The work will be of interest to professional philosophers, graduate students in philosophy, and linguists with interests in philosophy. (shrink)

Explores the place of consciousness in nature, drawing on new ideas in physics to argue that consciousness is a fundamental process of nature like light and electricity, rather than something that appears only in humans. 20,000 first printing.

The paper considers recent proposals by Armstrong, Dretske, and Tooley that revive the view that statements of laws of nature are grounded by the existence of higher order facts relating universals. Several objections to such a view are raised and an alternative analysis, recognizing general facts, is considered. Such an alternative is shown to meet a number of the objections raised against the appeal to higher order facts and it is also related to views of Hume and Wittgenstein. Further objections (...) are then raised to all the non-Humean "realist" attempts to provide special facts to ground the laws of nature. (shrink)

The place of man in Darwin's development of a theory of transmutation has been obscured by his manner of disclosure. Comparing the 1837–1839 period to his entire career as a theorist suggests that it was Darwin's practice to present himself and his work only before the most select scientific audiences, and then in accordance with their expectations. The negative implications of this rule for his publication on man are clear enough: finding no general invitation in science to publish as a (...) theorist and no contemporary scientific audience for the sorts of inquiries he was making on man, he was silent, at least until such time as he could publish on the strength of reputation alone. Now, with the availability of manuscripts from the early period, what was once hidden stands revealed. It is clear from Darwin's notebooks that man played a dual role in the formation of his theory: as a zoological species to be incorporated into the theory and as the primary vehicle for the study of behavior. On the first score, integrating man into the theory provoked Darwin to break with the traditional view of man's place in nature and to reject a major element in the scientific notion of progressive development. On the second score, the study of behavior led Darwin outside natural history and thence, unexpectedly, to Malthus and natural selection.One is left with the certainty that the subject of man was a central element in Darwin's formulation of his species theory. To an extent, then, the public judgment of Darwin was right all along, for the public had always sensed that Darwin spoke to a larger audience than that formed around science. On the basis of new evidence, we can add that Darwin drew from that larger audience as well. There are of course ironies to this conclusion: that Darwin the professional drew so heavily from fields where he was the amateur, that as a transparent man his inner life should prove so at odds with the manner in which he presented himself, and that his arrival at a strong sense of himself—the revolutionary “I” of his notebooks—should occur just as he stepped beyond science to engage the general culture. But when one considers the inherent difficulties of Darwin's subject and the magnitude of his claims respecting man, these ironies are perhaps not surprising at all but those of a kind which might be anticipated. (shrink)

Introduction: What is the critical spirit?--Utopianism, ancient and modern, by M.I. Finley.--Primitive society in its many dimensions, by S. Diamond.--Manicheanism in the Enlightenment, by R.H. Popkin.--Schopenhauer today, by M. Horkheimer.--Beginning in Hegel and today, by K.H. Wolff.--The social history of ideas: Ernst Cassirer and after, by P. Gay.--Policies of violence, from Montesquieu to the Terrorist, by E.V. Walter.--Thirty-nine articles: toward a theory of social theory, by J.R. Seeley.--History as private enterprise, by H. Zinn.--From Socrates to Plato, by H. Meyerhoff.--Rational society (...) and irrational art, by H. Read.--The quest for the Grail; Wagner and Morris, by C.E. Schorske.--Valéry; Monsieur Teste, by L. Goldmann.--History and existentialism in Sartre, by L. Krieger.--German popular biographies; culture's bargain counter, by L. Lowenthal.--The Rechtsstaat as magic wall, by O. Kirchheimer. (shrink)

Cette thèse universitaire, consacrée à Hegel, s'attache à relire le philosophe à la lumière des concepts d'historicité et de vie. L'ambition de Marcuse est de tenter d'articuler la logique ontologique et la phénoménologie de l'histoire. Le devenir de l'être du monde et celui de l'être psychique et social de l'humanité obéiraient alors à des principes identiques. Cette recherche passe nécessairement par la radicalisation de la pensée hégélienne au XXe siècle, c'est-à-dire par la relecture de l'œuvre de Dilthey et par la (...) discussion détaillée de la question de l'historicisme. (shrink)